


The Moon and Planets

by LaurytheLatrator



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Book: A Study in Scarlet, Demi-Girl Sherlock Holmes, F/F, Fem!Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Genderqueer Character, Getting Together, Resolved Sexual Tension, Story: A Scandal in Bohemia, Story: The Adventure of the Empty House, Story: The Final Problem, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian Lesbians, Victorian Sherlock Holmes, fem!john watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-04-28 11:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14448711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurytheLatrator/pseuds/LaurytheLatrator
Summary: Being a reprint from the reminiscences of Mrs. J. H. Watson, for the eyes of likeminded women.





	1. A Study in Scarlet

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of A Study In Scarlet with Always-a-Woman-Watson and Genderqueer-Demigirl-Holmes because I like lesbians. That's really all there is to it. Sections of this are lifted from ACD, and some bits of the original story are hand-waved away. The title comes from a fragment of Sappho, who was surprisingly big in Victorian times, to much irony.

 

In the year 1878, I was wedded to an Army Major who was due to be dispatched to India. India being believed to be a rather more civilized front, he arranged for my enlistment as a nurse, so that we might stay together in his travels. I had indeed whispered in his ear about this notion, having quite an abnormal interest in medicine, caring as I did for my late mother. However, upon arriving in Bombay, the Second Afghan War had just broken out, and we were told my husband’s regiment had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. In spite of the increased danger, I managed to stay with him and we succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety.

For men such as my husband, who quickly rose to the rank of Colonel, war is something to be celebrated and commended for their handling of in tents and parlor rooms. For myself, it brought nothing but the unfortunate souls bleeding out from beneath my hands. I will never be sure whether it was ignorance or disregard that allowed my husband to send me out with the surgeons during the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. So many perished that day, as I might have if not for an orderly who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

A Colonel’s wife is a rarity in a military hospital, even when serving as a nurse, and I confess to receiving many curious visitors during my stay in Peshawar, none of them my husband. I was informed later that he was struck down with enteric fever during my convalescence. How peculiar, that a woman might take a bullet so close to her heart and survive, while a virile man of hearty stock could be felled by so common an ailment. Although I offered to stay on at the hospital as a nurse, I believe it was several of my late husband’s peers who decided that a grieving widow had no place on the battlefield. I was bundled up in black and dispatched in the troopship _Orontes_ , and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty. There I stood, a widow possessing nothing more than a military stipend, in a land with neither kith nor kin.

Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. A woman of my standing could not afford to linger in a hotel, financially and prudently speaking, and yet I had no idea how to go about securing more reasonable lodgings.

I was taking a light stroll, one of the cheapest attractions London has to offer, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, a former associate of my brother’s at Bart’s. I was overjoyed to see a friendly face, and yet schooled myself into propriety. He expressed condolences as was appropriate and offered to take me to lunch, which I accepted. I recounted my adventures to him in a rough sketch, finishing as always with my deepest sadness at my late husband’s passing.

“Poor dear!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”

“Looking for lodgings,” I answered. “Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.”

“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion, “You are the second woman today that has used that expression to me.”

“And who was the first?” I asked.

“A woman in the chemical laboratory up in the hospital. She was bemoaning to all and sundry how a woman is not expected to live on her own, yet she should not like to pass up these nice rooms she’d come across.”

“Why that’s perfect!” I exclaimed. “If she should be willing to partner, I would be more than happy to share the expense. I must meet this lady.”

Mr. Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. “She’s hardly a lady as most would classify. A decent enough woman, rather eccentric, has some queer ideas about the state of society. You may not fancy her as a long term companion.”

I persisted. “Should she be in need of a person to go halves in a flat, I don't see her eccentricities to be a barrier, so long as she’s a woman of reason.”

“Oh yes,” He chuckled, “That she is.”

After much cajoling, Stamford agreed to introduce us, so long as I did not hold him accountable if I found this lady to be in poor taste. Hospitals are familiar ground to me, between my brother’s brief medical foray and my own more extensive. I tread the narrow white-washed halls with confidence. Near the further end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.

This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts, test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames. There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure.

“I’ve found it! I’ve found it,” he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. “I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by hœmoglobin, and by nothing else.” Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features

And they were, I realized then, feminine features. An easy mistake when gazing upon her from the back, for she was clad in a tailored suit, complete with a waistcoat with a delicate chain. Her wardrobe was masculine to every detail, down to her polished shoes, and yet it dipped above her hips as no man’s does. She wore only traces of makeup, arching her brow and lightening her cheeks. Her bright eyes, rather hawkish to suit her nose, needed no accentuation. Her raven hair was tightly coiled and pinned, yet I imagined that if free it would fall down her back.

“Mrs. Watson, meet Ms. Holmes,” Stamford introduced us, before making a show of checking his pocket watch. “I believe I have some business to attend to, you ladies converse. Mrs. Watson, do post me soon, won’t you?”

He took his leave and Ms. Holmes grasped my hand as a man would. “A pleasure,” She said cordially, “You’ve been to Afghanistan, I perceive.”

“How did you know it was Afghanistan?” I asked in astonishment. I was quite aware of my burnt complexion and thinness, though Stamford had seen fit to omit it.

“Never mind,” said she, with some vigor, “The question now is about hœmoglobin! What do you know on the subject?”

Quite flabbergasted, I recounted what I knew from my brother’s purloined texts, that it was the main clotting agent of the blood. Ms. Holmes was alight with the thrill of discovery, a discovery, she enthused, which would revolutionize criminology and lead to far more conclusive results. I followed along as best I could, and she must have appreciated that.

She switched tracks with the non-sequitur, “I hope you don’t mind the smell of tobacco?”

“No,” I answered, for I’d been around it all my life.

“I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?”

“By no means."

“Let me see—what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It’s just as well we ought to know the worst of one another before we aim to live together.”

I laughed at this cross-examination, finally gleaning what Stamford had addressed as ‘eccentricity’. Still, Ms. Holmes’ presumption was in line with my plans, so I answered, “I have naught but a stipend and little means to procure work. I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have vices that have not plagued me in years, but those are the principal ones at present.”

“Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?” She asked, anxiously.

“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well played violin is a treat for the gods—a badly-played one—”

“Then we shall consider the matter settled!” She clapped me on the shoulder with more force than any man would. Every mannerism seemed a conflicting picture of androgyny, which I gathered was her aim.

We discussed the details of seeing the flat, and parted, with me still wondering how she perceived the country of Afghanistan from a single handshake.

 

* * *

 

The rooms at 221B Baker Street consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows. It was also accompanied with a housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, who showed us in and took in our curious differences in appearance.

“You two ladies planning on staying long?” She asked, the thinly veiled query being of course, have you any prospects? To my shock, Ms. Holmes threw her arm around me with dramatic flair.

“You must observe, my dear woman, that Mrs. Watson has only recently lost her husband, another Army man fallen to the front. Why, she is so bereft, I fear what would become of her were it not for amiable company such as myself. Yes, I think we do intend to remain in this flat for quite some time, if that does not trouble you?”

“Not at all, Miss,” Mrs. Hudson demurred, “It is a relief to know such friendships exist as this. If I had not had my sister when my—”

“Yes, thank you,” Ms. Holmes interrupted smoothly, “Might we settle the arrangements, then?”

It was some time later that I had the opportunity to remark upon the incident. We were settling our belongings in, Holmes having quite a lot more earthly possessions than I.

“You never offered condolences,” I noted to my companion, “And yet you knew enough to use my predicament to your advantage.”

“Our advantage, I hoped. You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“No,” I confessed, “Though I wondered how you knew so much. Did Stamford tell you? Or another acquaintance?”

“Nothing of the sort. I deduced it.”

“You… but how?”

Ms. Holmes emitted a scoff. “I may as well ask you how you figure two and two makes four. Let me see… It was evident that you had just come from the tropics, for that is not the natural tint of your skin. You have a haggard face which indicates you’ve seen hardship outside of a parlor room. You were at ease in a hospital laboratory, and inspected the vial of blood I held without flinching, so you had medical experience of a kind. You hold your left arm in a stiff and unnatural manner. Therefore the question became, where in the tropics could an English woman have seen much hardship, become immunized to the sight of blood, and got her arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.”

I rubbed at my ‘haggard face’ self-consciously. “Alright. I was a nurse in Afghanistan. How did you deduce my husband was an army man who died abroad?”

“It is the most logical explanation for why you would be there in the first place, only to be unceremoniously deposited nearly penniless after sustaining your injury.” Another person would have sounded sympathetic, but I was beginning to see that Ms. Holmes was unlike any other person I’ve known. She merely carried on removing curios from her belongings to place upon the mantle. “As for why I haven’t expressed condolences, I didn’t imagine them welcome.”

“And why not?”

She held a human skull that looked far too real and addressed it. “Because you did not love your husband.”

I paused. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“We need not discuss it, but you expressed interest in my methods, so there they are.” Ms. Holmes and I allowed the time to pass in silence whilst I collected my thoughts.

“I’m not confirming your inference, and yet, I wonder how you arrived at it.”

“Oh I’m certain you had valid reasons for entering into the marriage,” Ms. Holmes took off, speaking rapidly as champagne uncorked, “Yet your affection soured, during your time abroad I expect. A nurse has many reasons to take issue with the person sending her charges into danger, and your lasting unease with the horrors you faced support that hypothesis. Why else would you have the irregular sleep patterns you saw fit to warn me of? Additionally, you swiftly returned to the use of your maiden name, I noted Stamford placed an emphasis on it as though you had previously corrected him. And finally,” She met my gaze, holding it wordlessly in the time it took to draw breath, “You laughed. Within minutes of our acquaintance I said something that amused you and you threw your head back and laughed. I’ve found it rare that a widow in mourning is so free with her gaiety, and deduced that your garb is a necessary costume, rather than an authentic expression.” She drummed her fingers on the mantle, a tick of nervous energy, while I sat quite impassive. “If I am mistaken, Mrs. Watson, do correct me. I meant no offense.”

“You’re a marvel,” I remarked, causing her to jolt with surprise, “Within a day you seem to understand more of my heart than anyone in the world.”

“They are not difficult leaps of logic,” said Ms. Holmes, though I thought from her expression that she was pleased at my evident admiration. “I must make such commonplace deductions and more in my line of work.”

“Your line of work?” I inquired. “Then you are not a chemist?”

She chose that instant to withdraw a set of complicated chemical equipment from another box. “No, not by trade,” She said, with a tone that told me she was being deliberately counter-intuitive, “Though I gather knowledge of all sorts. One never knows what might be useful.” It was a brush off, and one that I accepted, and we continued unpacking and reordering the flat to our satisfaction late into the night.

 

* * *

 

 _Sherlock Holmes_ — Her limits

  1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil.
  2. Philosophy.—Nil.
  3. Astronomy.—Nil.
  4. Politics.—Feeble.
  5. Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
  6. Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon her trousers, and told me by their colour and consistency in what part of London she had received them.
  7. Chemistry.—Profound.
  8. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic.
  9. Sensational Literature.—Immense. She appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
  10. Plays the violin well.
  11. Knows much about fashion of both sexes, and directs her tailor to her satisfaction.
  12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.



 

* * *

 

It took several months of rooming with Ms. Holmes before I learned the nature of her business. During this time I focused my efforts on my own health, resolving not to be the sort of helpless invalid so many ladies choose to become. I would take walks to increase my strength, and when that fled me, retire to our rooms to read. I had always been a voracious reader, and thought I found company in Ms. Holmes, only to discover that her vast library was devoted to matters of science, law, and subjects so utterly specific as to offer little interest. There wasn’t a spot of poetry or fiction among her collection, so for my own needs I spent my spare shillings at the bookstore down the street.

It was clear that I had made a good choice of flatmate, for Ms. Holmes was not difficult to room with. Her habits were regular: it was rare for her to be up after ten at night, and she had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes she retreated to the hospital labs, though she set up more and more chemical experiments in her room at Baker Street. Others she would disappear on long walks in various states of dress. Nothing could exceed her energy when the working fit was upon her; but now and again a reaction would seize her, and for days on end she would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in her eyes, I might have thought her under some spell or influence.

I had initially surmised Ms. Holmes as friendless as myself, and yet she seemed to be visited at all hours by any manner of people. When such a person would arrive, looking desperate and eager, Ms. Holmes would usher me out of the sitting room with countless apologies. I would wait in my rooms while the visitor and my flatmate conversed below. I admit, I would have been suspicious, were it not for the short length of time and the composure Ms. Holmes retained when she called me back down, with ever more apologies.

“I have to use this room as a place of business,” She said, after one little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade had made his hasty leave, “and these people are my clients.”

It was the opportunity I seized upon, allowing a note of disapproval to enter my tone, “For what do your clients seek you out?”

“Come now, Mrs. Watson,” She tutted, “You mustn’t believe I’m up to anything nefarious. You’re too bright to come to such an erroneous conclusion.” In response, I merely folded my arms and waited, as a mother might to a wayward youth. At last, Ms. Holmes relented. “Well... I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent.”

“You mean, just from talking with them, you can collect enough evidence to solve their mysteries?”

“Mm, yes,” She moved to the hanging slipper containing tobacco, and lit her favored clay pipe. “Most of the time it’s through talk, as I’m the most incurably lazy devil. When the urge strikes I have been known to go out and put in some legwork, as it were. Certainly, one cannot rely upon Inspector Lestrade to gather all relevant data.”

My head spun from this revelation. That man, Lestrade, was from Scotland Yard, and frequently sought the help of Ms. Holmes in the resolution of his cases. It boggled me, frankly, and inspired me on behalf of my sex.

“I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous,” Ms. Holmes announced. “No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done.” Modesty, I was finding, was another of Ms. Holmes’ shortcomings. “And what does it amount to?” She shook a telegram, from where I had not noticed. “Banal ‘puzzlers’, some bungling villany so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official ought to see through it.”

“May I?” I asked, reaching for the paper. Upon a moment’s study of my outstretched hand, Ms. Holmes lazily acquiesced. I read the account, from an Inspector Gregson, of an American man murdered in an empty house, possessing all his valuables, with no clear wounds to account for the nearby blood and his deceased status. “My God,” I swore, “This is terrible. Surely there is no time to waste. Shall I call you a cab?”

“My dear woman, what does it matter to me? Supposing I unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”

“But he begs you to help him.”

“Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person.” She puffed on her pipe, the clouds revolving around her head like the solar system she’d known nothing of. Then, quite from nowhere, she tossed the pipe’s contents into the fire. “However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my own hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on!” She hustled on her overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed that an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one. “Get your hat,” She said, and I nearly searched the room for a third occupant.

“You wish me to come?”

“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” She knew, of course, that I hadn’t. A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road. My hands were clasped, for fear of shaking, and giving away to my brilliant companion just how eager and fearful I was.

 

* * *

 

It was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Ms. Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence she dispatched a long telegram. To whom, I did not know, though she’d announced our intention to interview the first officer on the scene. We then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us to the address given us by Lestrade.

“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” She remarked, tugging off her black leather gloves. “As a matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as well learn all that is to be learned.”

“You amaze me, Ms. Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”

“There’s no room for a mistake,” She answered. “The very first thing which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the morning—I have Gregson’s word for that—it follows that it must have been there during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those two individuals to the house.”

“That seems simple enough,” said I, “But how about the other man’s height?”

“Why, a person’s height, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When one writes on a wall, their instinct leads them to write about the level of their own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”

“And his age?”

“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across. Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over. There is no mystery about it at all. It’s a simple matter applying to ordinary life a few precepts of observation and deduction. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”

“The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.

“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in colour and flakey—such an ash as is only made by a Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”

“And the florid face?” I asked, eyes narrowed, to which my companion was accordingly sheepish.

“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”

I pressed my hand to my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I remarked, “The more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two men—if there were two men—into an empty house? What has become of the cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison? Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer, since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above all, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE before decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these facts.”

Ms. Holmes smiled, a rare occurrence I was finding, approving and impressed at my efforts. “You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” She said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was simply a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real German invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong channel.” There was a lull, filled with the common London rabble and the bouncing of the cab, in which Ms. Holmes reached over and gave my forearm a brief squeeze. “I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, my dear Mrs. Watson. You know a conjurer gets no credit once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”

“I shall never do that,” I vowed. “You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world. It would be remarkable from anyone, yet it seems doubly so knowing the obstacles facing our sex.”

My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that she was as sensitive to flattery on the score of her art as any other girl could be of her beauty. I had the urge then to make Ms. Holmes blush with my every utterance, if I could. It flattered her complexion, and were she to ever release her tightly pinned curls, I imagined no one could match her picture of femininity.

 

* * *

 

Following the interview of the officer, whom Ms. Holmes rudely declared to his face would never make it up the ranks, my health had reached its limit. I retired to Baker Street while Ms. Holmes departed for a concert, one Norman Neruda. Ms. Holmes had said, enigmatically, that she always sought to patron rare specimens of womanhood. Leaving me very alone, my mind was too much excited by all that had occurred to rest, and the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into it.

The way that Ms. Holmes strode into a room brimming with men of high authority, and not only didn’t bow her head or lower her gaze, but proceeded to take charge of the scene, indeed, insulted the efforts of Lestrade and Gregson… It was inspiring to be sure. She comported herself as though there should be no reason to be meek. She, and the Inspectors it seemed, were well aware of her brilliant intellect. None of the Inspectors or officers had removed their hats for her as they did myself, a move that Ms. Holmes met with scorn.

The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion’s hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how she had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that she had detected something which had given rise to the idea. Then again, if not poison, what had caused the man’s death, since there was neither wound nor marks of strangulation? But, on the other hand, whose blood was that which lay so thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist. As long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be no easy matter.

I was resting fitfully on the settee when Ms. Holmes returned with a slam of the door and flair of her coattails. “Do you recall the words of Darwin on music?” She asked without pause in divesting her coat. A glance at the clock told me it was later than the concert alone would have taken her. “He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.”

I answered without really considering. “That’s very fanciful.”

Having hung up her outer coat and her top hat, Ms. Holmes turned her heavy scrutiny onto me. “You sound unwell, my dear. Has this Brixton Road affair upset you?”

In truth, it hadn’t, not in the manner she implied. The distorted countenance of the deceased had been startling, and yet, I had witnessed mutilations of all kinds on the battlefield, and that was not what clouded my mind. I believe it was simple insecurity. For here was a fine specimen of womanhood, enthused with her work, and to whom no man could hold a candle. As for myself, I had nothing to offer Ms. Holmes in the way of intellect, nor a man as a spouse. The invitation into my friend's world left me more adrift than ever.

I could not bear to voice this to her, however. “Yes, I suppose it has. You will forgive me if I retire,” said I, rising on rickety knees, though bed was the last place I’d like to be; nothing awaited me there but terrors and unease.

I heard Ms. Holmes clear her throat. “I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. I do hope you get some rest, my dear Mrs. Watson.”

While I lay awake proceeding to do the complete opposite, I listened to the comforting sounds of my flatmate in the rooms below. Her long purposeful strides sounded as though she were pacing, save for a break of light violin notes. Our stasis in the house was unbalanced by the sharp ring of the doorbell, followed by the unmistakable signs that Ms. Holmes had rushed outside to meet them. Another checking of a timepiece told me it was close to midnight, well outside of her evening routine. The flat was empty for such a time that I did drift into sleep in earnest.

 

* * *

 

In the following days the “Brixton Mystery” was splashed on every paper. I retain clippings of each account, which varied mostly in the social ill they placed the blame upon. Mankind continues to astound me with its ability to twist death and misfortune to its purpose. While I viewed the papers with distaste, Ms. Holmes took some amusement from them.

“I told you that whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be sure to score.” She shouted this from her room, where I imagined her dressing for the day.

I flipped a page to tamer matters. “That depends on how it turns out.”

“Oh, bless you, it doesn’t matter in the least. If the man is caught, it will be on account of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be in spite of their exertions. It’s heads I win and tails you lose. Whatever they do, they will have followers. ‘ _Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire._ ’”

I would not argue with her in French, so I quieted. At last Ms. Holmes appeared, and I gawked. She looked… Like many women I had noticed among the company of soldiers. She wore a broad feathered hat in a shade of mauve that matched her gown, the hem of which sloped behind her so that it exposed the front of her calves in their tattered stockings. Her waist was cinched tight to give her ample curves where heretofore I’d seen none. Her cheeks were overly rouged, so much so it gave her the appearance of a lifelong drinker in addition to one with heavy handed makeup. She tottered when she strut forward, her eyes sharp as ever upon me.

“Two bits for a bob, love?” She asked in a slurring Cockney drawl. My voice remained absent, and she cackled. Yet when she addressed me again it was with Ms. Holmes’ composure. “Whores are the great invisible, my dear Watson. The respectable eye skates over them, and yet they can be found on any street corner without raising a brow. It is one of my most favored disguises.”

I swallowed. “You play the part impeccably. The stage lost a valuable asset when you devoted yourself to crime.” As I by now expected, Ms. Holmes appeared touched by my praise.

“You are certain you do not wish to accompany me? There is always more value in two pairs of keen eyes. You might sit in a nearby shop while I stake my place.”

It tempted me, but I recalled my position. “I’m afraid I’d be of more use here, collecting any missives that come for you.”

She scoffed, “Mrs. Hudson is more than capable on that front. But very well, if you’re sure, I shan’t badger you.” With little more conversation, Ms. Holmes swept from the flat, and before she shut the door I watched the mask fall over her demeanor. When she walked out onto the street, she’d be unmistakably a seasoned prostitute.

It was sometime later, after my novel of the day failed to enliven me, that I was lying on my bed when a furious pounding began on our door. It rattled me, and I steeled myself for any manner of confrontation. From my vanity, I produced my husband’s old service revolver, the only memento I had squirreled away before my dispatch. With it firmly in hand, I went to the sitting room, planting myself across from the door.

“Who’s there?” I demanded, clicking the safety off.

“Eh?” The banging stopped. “That you Holmes?”

“I repeat, state your name.”

“Why, it’s Inspector Gregson of the yard,” The voice answered. I raced to stash the revolver in a desk drawer.

“I shall open the door in a moment,” I stalled, “Please have your credentials ready.” I did as I said, and on the other side stood a tall, white-faced, flaxen-haired man. I vaguely recognized him from the Brixton crime scene, but nevertheless inspected his documents. Satisfied, I allowed him in and showed him to a chair.

“Apologies, ma’am,” He said, removing his hat, “I did not mean to stir up a fuss. I was only eager to rub Holmes’ nose in it.” That rude statement brought me short, and I eased into my seat by the fireplace.

“Do you mean that you are on the right track?” I inquired politely.

“The right track!” He barked jovially. “My lady, we have the man under lock and key. Just wait until Holmes gets back, I’ll have her sweating bullets at my tale.”

I folded my hands in my lap. “In that case, I'm pleased Ms. Holmes’ estimation of the constabulary was wrong,” said I, for my friend had made her feelings plain. “Unfortunately, she is not in at the moment. I believe she is investigating.”

“Ha, then if she’s half the detective she thinks she is, she’ll find out what we’ve done and give it up. If it isn’t too much trouble, ma’am, I’d rather like to stay and inform her when she gets back.”

“Not at all.” Unwilling to leave the strange man, police though he may be, in our flat unsupervised, I pulled a nearby volume of poetry onto my lap. I opened it to the bookmark, and performed a display of reading, though my attention was consumed by the fidgeting Inspector.

“If I might pry, ma’am,” His use of the honorific was irking me, “How did you come to room with Holmes?”

“A lucky chance.”

“Then you did not know her before?” At my silence, he went on, “Forgive me, for it isn't my place, but you may want to reconsider. Holmes is… peculiar. Surely you've noticed her odd manner of dress?” I nodded stiffly. “That's only the beginning. She's a brazen menace, and if the law were on my side, I'd have her locked away for good.”

“What do you mean?”

His voice thickened with implication, “She’s never shared company with a man, ma’am. Not one for a husband. If she were truly a man, not the farce she plays at, I'd be well within my rights to toss her in the gaol for hard labor.” He shook his head. “You're a respectable lady, ma’am. You needn't throw your lot in with her.”

“Inspector Gregson,” I drew a long breath, “You're right. It's not your place.” The Inspector shifted, and we allowed silence to draw over us both.

A silence which was shattered by the downstairs door flying open and hitting the wall. I jumped for the desk, snatching up the revolver as heavy footfall traipsed upstairs, and had it aimed for the sitting room door when it opened to reveal Ms. Holmes. Her costume was in disarray and paired with a man’s overcoat, and her eyes shone with a manic gleam.

“Do put that away, my most extraordinary girl!” She exclaimed, and I set the gun down once again. She rushed to me, thrusting an open ointment box close to my face. “I have it now! The last link in the case is complete!” She cried exultantly. “Observe, Watson, are these ordinary pills?” The small box contained two pills, and they certainly were not ordinary. They were of a pearly grey colour, small, round, and almost transparent against the light.

“From their lightness and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water,” I remarked.

“Precisely so!” She whirled around toward her chemistry equipment, yet was arrested by the sight of our visitor. “Inspector Gregson, how fortuitous. I believe you and Lestrade have some comparing of notes to do.” Ms. Holmes had so enraptured me, that I realized with a start that behind her trailed the other Inspector, sans coat.

I chose then to speak up, “Inspector Gregson was telling me how he had the Brixton case all tied up.”

“How shocking then,” Holmes cooly retorted, “That there’s been another murder, not one hour ago.”

Gregson sputtered, face turning ruddy, “Beg pardon?”

“Your colleague will inform you of the details,” Ms. Holmes waved him away, “Watson, my dear, I must test the lethality of these pills.”

“If you dare think of taking any of those yourself—”

“Nonsense, I shall find a dog.”

“ _No, you shan’t._ ”

“So tender hearted, dear girl,” Her effusive praise was likewise as irking as Gregson’s _ma’am_ , “To conclusively prove that these are the poisoned pills in question is the crux of the case!”

I countered with her beloved logic, “The hospital breeds rats exclusively for experimentation. Go forth and find your proof there.”

Ms. Holmes shot me so wounded a look, I nearly did relent. At last, gripping Lestrade’s overcoat tighter, she turned with a flair. “Very well. Lestrade, Gregson, I shall meet you at St. Bart’s, where all will be illuminated.” The Inspectors dithered a moment too long, and she strode forward, planting a hand to each of their shoulders, and all but shoved them to the door. “I must attire myself appropriately, and if either of you deduce the true nature of the crime in that time, I shall campaign for your knighthood hereafter.”

The door she slammed shut on their bewildered expressions. I expected her energy to persist, but instead Holmes seemed to harden to a statue, her head resting upon the cold wood. In the following quiet, my hand itched to grasp the revolver once more. I could sense my flatmate’s tension, her displeasure, and all of it I imagined directed at myself. Though there was no offense I could clearly point to that would explain it, I felt compelled to apologize.

I landed on the most recent development. “Time is not so dearly of the essence that you cannot wait and proceed under laboratory conditions, is it, Ms. Holmes?”

I heard her long, slow, exhale from across the room. “No, you are correct.”

The air did not dissipate, and still Holmes remained. “I hope you are not aggrieved at my entertaining Inspector Gregson. He called whilst you were out and was most insistent on staying.”

Something in this statement moved her. Holmes brought her frighteningly astute gaze to rake over me.

“Then you’ve been warned of me,” She said, “And yet by your behavior, I would have expected it sooner. Had you made a hypothesis, and Gregson merely confirmed it?”

Though I dreaded her cutting observations, I needed to know, “What behavior?”

Out her beakish nose came a derisive snort. “You withdrew,” She accused simply, and strode across the room. I inhaled sharply at her approach, but she veered left towards her rooms. Once safely out of sight, Holmes raised her voice, continuing to explain as she changed clothes. “I attributed it at first to your health, though that proved erroneous. No, your interest in accompanying me—Nay,” She barked, “Your interest in my work full stop, waned at once. I planned to ignore it, so we might continue on amicably, until now when I see plainly…” There was an extended moment filled with only the rustling of fabric.

I found my voice, “It isn’t as you say. Your work fascinates me. It is my own—”

“Reputation then,” spat Holmes as she emerged, impeccably dressed, face carved from marble. “Well, Watson, I am what I do. If it repulses you, then we must give up this charade of friendship and renegotiate our living situation.”

I was so flabbergasted, I proceeded to gape helplessly as she crossed the room. She scowled at the overcoat she’d carelessly dropped, muttering curses at the Inspector that he surely didn’t deserve. At last she’d donned her own outerwear, scooped up the offending article, and fled the flat, all while I stared dumbly on.

It was perhaps an hour later, after much musing and servicing of the revolver, that I’d collected my thoughts to know what must be done.

 

* * *

 

It was a weary Holmes that trudged into the sitting room later that night. Already I had positioned myself at the fireplace, and she paused at the mantle to fill her clay pipe before sinking into the opposite armchair.

“Did you discover what you needed?” I gently eased the conversation forward.

She took a few mullish puffs before answering. “Oh yes. The pills were identified as poison—well,” She contradicted herself, “One poison, the other harmless, so as to tempt the victims into a fatal game of chance.”

“Truly?” I exclaimed.

“Yes, though you needn’t fear. The culprit has been arrested, courtesy of my Irregulars, though the Inspectors will claim credit in tomorrow’s headlines.”

I probed, “Then it wasn’t the chap Gregson apprehended at all?”

“Hardly,” Holmes scoffed, then looked more sharply at me. “Is this an olive branch, or honest inquiry? I don’t wish to entertain hollow overtures, my time is too precious for that.”

“Holmes,” I sighed, “Please, I will burn with curiosity if you do not tell me all.”

It took her a moment of silent contemplation and smoking, and then she graced me with the most entrancing tale. There was thwarted love, and God, and greed, and revenge. There was a man who tracked his lover’s wrongdoers across the Atlantic and took a job as a cabbie to hunt them. There was the impending reaper ushering him forward recklessly. There was a ring, a lost keepsake, and this beautiful and brilliant detective who found it, who found everything out.

By the time I begged her divulge how she reached her deductions, we were both sipping glasses of brandy, our cheeks warmed by more than the fire.

“If I tell you,” said Holmes, “You will learn that I am not as magnificent as you initially believed, that the case was intrinsically simple, and that the solution was an easy sequence of reasoning backwards.”

I smiled, “I assure you, easy it may seem to you, it is extraordinary to me.”

“Then in return, I ask that you speak plainly,” Holmes requested, “And answer why your warm regard seemed to flee after I brought you to Brixton Road.”

It was no less than I’d prepared to do, and so I agreed.

“To begin at the beginning, I approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all impressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as I have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, I ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I satisfied myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman’s brougham.

“This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable for taking impressions. There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the constables, but I saw also the track of the two men who had first passed through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been before the others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height as I calculated from the length of his stride, and the other fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his boots.

“On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My well-booted man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person, but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his fate before it came upon him. Having sniffed the dead man’s lips I detected a slightly sour smell, and I came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon him. Again, I argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. By the method of exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet the facts.

“And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had not been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics, then, as the constabulary presumed? Political assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder had, on the contrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator had left his tracks all over the room, showing that he had been there all the time. It must have been a private wrong, and not a political one, which called for such a methodical revenge. When the inscription was discovered upon the wall I was more inclined than ever to my opinion. The thing was too evidently a blind. When the ring was found, however, it settled the question. Clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim of some dead or absent woman. It was at this point that I asked Gregson whether he had enquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr. Drebber’s former career. He answered, you remember, in the negative.

“I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer’s height, and furnished me with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the length of his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since there were no signs of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor had burst from the murderer’s nose in his excitement. I could perceive that the track of blood coincided with the track of his feet. It is seldom that a healthy man, unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way through emotion, so I hazarded the opinion that the criminal was probably a robust and ruddy-faced man. Events proved that I had judged correctly.

“Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected. I telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my enquiry to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drebber. The answer was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had already applied for the protection of the law against an old rival in love, named Jefferson Hope, and that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now that I held the clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to secure the murderer.

“I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked into the house with Drebber, was none other than the man who had driven the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse had wandered on in a way which would have been impossible had there been anyone in charge of it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he were inside the house? Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would carry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a third person, who was sure to betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished to dog another through London, what better means could he adopt than to turn cabdriver. All these considerations led me to the irresistible conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveys of the Metropolis.

“If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased to be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change would be likely to draw attention to himself. He would, probably, for a time at least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose that he was going under an assumed name. Why should he change his name in a country where no one knew his original one? I therefore organized my band of informants, and sent them systematically to every cab proprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted. How well they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage of it, are still fresh in your recollection. The murder of Stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected, but which could hardly in any case have been prevented. Through it, as you know, I came into possession of the pills, the existence of which I had already surmised."

Following her methodical soliloquy, she paused to refill her pipe, adding over her shoulder, “You see the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without a break or flaw.”

Embarrassed at my loss of composure I may have been, I knew Holmes required honesty from me tonight, so I did not shy away from my admiration. “It is wonderful! Your merits should be publicly recognized. You ought to be celebrated as the genius you are.”

Holmes let out another of her sharp barking laughs. “That is what you’ve concluded from our acquaintance? Very well, we’re agreed on our estimation of my intellect. And of other matters?”

I drained my brandy, and wandered away to procure a bottle of wine. I cared not of the year as I poured large helpings for the both of us. Mine, I started on, while Holmes looked on.

“I am a coward,” I confessed, “And I understand my cowardice pained you. For that I can only apologize and attempt to explain.”

“Before you do, I must object. I have not found you a coward in any way, quite the contrary, in fact.”

“You’re kind to say so.”

“I’m not kind in the least. You’ve noticed as much.” At her prompting, I conceded the point. “Shall we compare our observations, then?” She proposed.

“You’ll no doubt use it to mock me,” I huffed, “But very well.”

“I found the list you crumpled up,” She began with a twitch, “‘Her limits’? Hardly representative, my dear Watson. You can do better than that.”

“Very well,” I said, tongue loose, “You’re arrogant, narcissistic, irascible, irreverent, manipulative, and require constant validation to keep you in high spirits.” The woman in question continued to smoke, unmoved. “You are also loud,” I added, “Not with your violin, but with your very being.” She blew out, and her smile shone through the haze. “You are an appalling picture of womanhood, yet you’re equally unsuitable as a man.”

“Men,” Holmes said with disgust, “Foul creatures. Too often they confuse passion and brutality. No, I find no company with them. And women! Dolls, made up for the other sex, breaking their backs to heave mankind up like Atlas, all while insisting on empty-headedness in pursuit of security. Neither sex holds appeal for me, my dear Watson. I am entirely my own. A singularity.”

“I know,” I replied. “You are unique of mind and body and soul. Had I met you at any other time in my life, I imagine I’d detest you.” By her glowing expression, I knew I need not state how different my current feelings were.

“On the first day you accompanied me to the crime scene and subsequent interview, you went gayly. The thrill of the unknown touched you as it does me. I daresay it steadied your gait, robbing you of the fixation upon your invalidity. And yet somewhere along the way doubt crept into your silly head and you covered your eagerness to accompany me. You _wilted_ , Watson.” Her lips formed a pout of disappointment, comical on her face.

“My whole life, I have been… flotsam. Crisis after crisis, I have done my best to keep my head above water. You, Holmes, you are like a captain at the prow of his ship. Nevermind the drinking, smoking, and any other vices, and nevermind your faults, though they are many. You are _decisive,_ above all the talents you possess, and _that_ is where we differ so.”

I did not tell her of my childhood, ambitions crushed for the sake of my errant brother, the absence of my father, the decline of my mother, the evocations attempted and discarded, the meeting of my Army Major, his eventual disdain for my company, the hopelessness of trying to stem the tide of war with stitches in a dead man’s leg, of my solitary boat ride back to a home that had no use for me... I did not say any of this because I believe she’d already surmised it all.

With sudden vigor she pushed out of the armchair and began to pace the well-trod path along the carpet.

“I should like to dispense with your petty insecurity and state the facts: you are bright, you are brave, and you are hungry. You say I am decisive, then let me request this: be my partner. For so long as we both wish it, aid me in my work, learn my methods, be my backup. I know you are familiar with the use of that revolver you cling to as a child would a blanket. Apply your skills, be they medical, military, or maidenly, to my,” She stopped, shook her head, “To our cases.”

Wryly I smiled without humor. “To accept would be to make my point.”

“Damn your supposed point,” She swore. “Remind me, in your list of my numerous defects, did you name me selfish?” I shook my head. “You ought to have, as I’m devilishly selfish. You cannot give me a delightful glimpse of what could be and then rip it away.”

I thought of my lounging and reading in the sitting room while she sat conducting experiments and remarked, “Is my company so desirous to you?”

All at once, her pacing was abandoned, and I found Holmes a hand’s-breadth away from my face. Although we were not touching in any way, I was boxed in by her leaning on the armrests. Her breath rested sticky and smoky upon my mouth. I could discern flecks of silver and blue within her pale eyes.

“Yes, Watson,” She declared in a feather soft, rich timbre, “It may very well be.”

“Oh,” I believe I whispered.

“Do you object?”

We were still not touching, yet I was burning up, the fire licking at my skin from all sides. Hoarsely I said, “No.”

“You agree?” I may have imagined the slightest brush, like a drop of spring rain, upon the back of my wrist.

“Yes.”

Sherlock straightened, tucking her hand into her trouser pocket, and something deep within me uncoiled. “Excellent. I see no end to the good we can do, Watson. You’ve made me very glad.” With the fire dancing in her cold and clever eyes, she left me there and took up her violin. I listened as she floated on the melody to the window, playing her song to all of Baker St and beyond. Who among them would know of this extraordinary creature, I wondered, but those privileged few such as myself.

That night gave me the first flash of inspiration to record the truth in my journals. These journals, my case notes, my private love letters. I will shine light upon the stage she dances across for as long as she will keep me.

 

_The stars about the fair moon in their turn hide their bright face when she at about her full lights up all earth with silver._

 

> Sappho
> 
> “The Moon and Planets”
> 
> H.T. Wharton translation

 

 


	2. A Scandal in Bohemia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So accustomed was I to her invariable success that the very possibility of her failing had ceased to enter into my head.

_(Journal entry dated Late-May 1887)_

 

I was as naive as a kitten before I met The Woman.

While I had endured my marital bed, I was ignorant in the ways of pleasure. My flatmate, the ineffable Ms. Sherlock Holmes, inspired a stirring of the imagination, yet I could not conjure the means she might use in lovemaking. Love—nay, all emotions, I came to find, were abhorrent to her cold, precise but admirable balanced mind. She never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were fine things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into her own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all her mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of her own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as hers.

She was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied her immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. There was something in her masterly grasp of a situation, and her keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study her system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which she disentangled the most inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to her invariable success that the very possibility of her failing had ceased to enter into my head.

I had seen little of Holmes lately. I had at last stumbled upon a method of supplementing my income, beyond the military stipend I still regularly received. Although Holmes insisted, when she deigned to speak of financial matters at all, that I need only contribute what I could and that she might make up the difference, this nonetheless felt inequitable; for all that I accompanied her on her investigates, I believed my assistance to be minimal, and not worth any significant compensation. So it was that I took up the profession of midwifery. While I was as often paid in sovereigns as I was chickens, it was rewarding work, and I can confess to shedding a tear at nearly every baptism I attended hence.

When I would return to the flat, eager to bathe, I so often found myself heaving for breath from some concoction gone wrong. In my frequent absence Holmes alternated between a fierce dive into her chemical experiments and the drowsiness of cocaine. I should so much rather prefer the former, and my disapproval was noted, yet I contented myself that she did not mix her passions.

As I entered the sitting room, after hanging my overcoat and dropping my medical bag, I noted Holmes working hard over a chemical investigation at her acid-charred bench. A large curved retort was boiling furiously over the bluish flame of a Bunsen burner, and the distilled drops were condensing into a two-litre measure. She dipped into this bottle or that, drawing out a few drops of each with the glass pipette, and finally brought a test-tube containing a solution over to the table. In her right hand she had a slip of litmus-paper.

“You come at a crisis, Watson,” said Holmes, without looking up at my entrance. “If this paper remains blue, all is well. If it turns red, it means a man’s life.” At that dire pronouncement, she dipped it into the test-tube, and it flushed at once into a dull, dirty crimson.

“Ought I to be pleased or disappointed?” I inquired, uncertain which case this experiment referred to.

“Neither overmuch,” Holmes remarked, scribbling upon her telegraph pad, “A mere confirmation. I shall be with you in an instant, Watson.” I seated myself in my favoured armchair, and poured myself a finger of brandy. Alcohol had become my sin, as Holmes had hers.

My flatmate turned in her chair at last, giving me her customary sweeping glance. “A girl, was it?” She pronounced, rising to fill her pipe from the hanging slipper.

“My dear Holmes,” said I, “this is too much. You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago.”

“Oh yes, me and the other women who dared disobey convention.” In spite of her somewhat grim statement, her eyes twinkled as she settled herself in the opposing armchair, puffing like a steamboat on her pipe.

“Get on with it, then,” I teased her, “However did you come to this deduction?”

She waved her hand through the thick fog about her face. “It is not some miraculous feat. You usually tarry longer when the newborn is female, your fingers wrinkle with its bathing, and you linger with the mother, no doubt assuring her the child will be every bit as capable as the anticipated boy. When the child is male, you neaten your hair and overall appearance before announcing to the father and assorted relatives; but the joy you feel at a healthy wriggling girl is enough to make you forget yourself until after its needs have been seen to. Ergo, loose hairpins, wrinkled fingertips, and that little slip of ribbon peeking from your bag inform me that you have just heralded another young girl into this world.”

Startled, I glanced behind myself to my bag. I could not spot the ribbon she mentioned for a good minute, until the faint traces of ivory fiber caught in my clasp came into focus.

I let out an incredulous laugh. “When I hear you give your reasons, the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself. Truly I believe that my eyes must be as good as yours, yet I am baffled until you explain your process.”

“You see, but you do not observe,” She answered, with a playful smirk that belied her words, “The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”

“Frequently.”

“How often?”

“Well, some hundreds of times.”

“Then how many are there?”

“How many? I don’t know.”

“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.” Seventeen steps, I resolved to remember, so that I might check her work and be sure she was not merely boasting to play a trick upon me. Invigorated by her point, Holmes reached to the table and tossed me a sheet of thick, pink-tinted note-paper which had been lying open. “Since you are interested in these little problems, perhaps you may try your hand at this. It came at last post, read it.”

My flatmate did know how to appeal to my curiosity. The note was undated, and without either signature or address, and I scanned it eagerly. It said:

> _There will call upon you tonight, at a quarter to eight o’clock, a_ _gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated. This account of you we have from all quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask._

My brow furrowed as I reread certain lines. _Your recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe... do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask..._

“This is indeed a mystery,” I remarked. “What do you imagine that it means?”

“I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you deduce from it?”

I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was written. While I could not always understand how she made such leaps of logic, I attempted in my small way to emulate her processes.

“Such paper could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and stiff.”

“Peculiar—that is the very word,” said Holmes. “It is not an English paper at all. Hold it up to the light.”

I did so, and saw a large “E” with a small “g,” a “P,” and a large “G” with a small “t” woven into the texture of the paper.

“What do you make of that?” asked Holmes, scrutinizing me as I did the note.

“The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.”

“Not at all. The ‘G’ with the small ‘t’ stands for ‘Gesellschaft,’ which is the German for ‘Company.’ It is a customary contraction like our ‘Co.’ ‘P,’ of course, stands for ‘Papier.’ Now for the ‘Eg.’ Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer.”

She took down a heavy brown volume from her shelves. For many years she had adopted a system of docketing all paragraphs concerning names, so that it was difficult to name a subject or a person on which she could not at once furnish information. How she decided which peoples or places were worthy of documentation was unknown to me.

“Eglow, Eglonitz—here we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking country—in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. ‘Remarkable as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous glass-factories and paper-mills.’ Ha, ha, my dear girl, what do you make of that?” Her eyes sparkled, and she sent up a great triumphant cloud from her pipe

I think you’re a packrat who stumbled into precisely the right profession, I thought. “The paper was made in Bohemia,” I said.

“Yes, exactly! And the writer of our note is a German. Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you we have from all quarters received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts.”

A look at the clock informed me it was twenty to eight o’clock. Amid the London din, there came the sharp sound of horses’ hoofs and grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell.

“A pair, by the sound,” said Holmes, with a low whistle. “A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There’s money in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else.”

I half-rose from my chair. “Perhaps I ought to give you privacy.”

“Nonsense, dear. Stay where you are. This promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.”

“But your client—”

“Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes. Sit down in that armchair, Watson, and give us your best attention.” Obediently I did as I was told, wondering as ever at her insistence.

A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap.

“Come in!” called Holmes, leaning back in her chair. She set aside her pipe so as to steeple her fingers, aware of the powerful effect her posture had on the unsuspecting.

A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with a barrel for a chest and arms that would not be amiss on an ape. His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance. He carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered.

“You had my note?” He asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly marked German accent. “You had been told I would call.” He looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.

“Pray take a seat,” said Holmes, with a gesture to the settee. “This is my friend and colleague, Mrs. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases. Whom have I the honour to address?”

“You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman.” He cleared his throat with a rumble. “Madame Holmes, it is your reputation of discretion that brought me to you. I should much prefer to communicate with you alone.”

Again, I rose to go, but Holmes lunged and caught me by the wrist. “It is both, or none,” said she with steely resolve. “You may say before this woman anything which you may say to me.”

The Count sagged his broad shoulders. “Then I must begin,” said he, “by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance. At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence upon European history.”

“I promise,” said Holmes immediately.

With some disbelief, I uttered, “And I.”

“You will excuse this mask,” continued our strange visitor. “The august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you, and I may confess at once that the title by which I have just called myself is not exactly my own.”

“I was aware of it,” said Holmes dryly, sharing a look with me; even I had reasoned that much.

“The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of Europe. To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great House of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia.”

“I was also aware of that,” murmured Holmes, sinking down in her armchair and closing her eyes.

Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid, lounging figure of the woman who had been no doubt depicted to him as the most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. Holmes slowly reopened her eyes and looked impatiently at her gigantic client.

“If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,” she remarked, “I should be better able to advise you.”

The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. “Who has told you this, Madame?” He demanded whilst averting his face from my friend. “With whom have you been conversing?”

“No one,” Holmes lazily declared, unmoved from her reclined position by his flurry of movement, “Your Majesty had not spoken before I was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia.”

With a gesture of desperation, he tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. “You are right,” he cried; “I am the King. Why should I attempt to conceal it?” I gazed with some reverence at the royal in our sitting room, who was in fact utterly ordinary. He seemed no more or less a man than anyone we might have met. “But you can understand,” said our strange visitor, sitting down once more and passing his hand over his high white forehead, “that I am not accustomed to doing such business in my own person. Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power. I have come incognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting you.”

“Then, pray consult,” said Holmes, shutting her eyes once more.

“The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you.”

“Kindly look her up in my index, Watson, dear,” murmured Holmes without opening her eyes. I did so, grateful that for all her bizarre biographies, she at least alphabetized the lot. In this case I found Ms. Irene Adler sandwiched in between a Hebrew rabbi and a staff-commander who had written a monograph upon the deep-sea fishes. I delivered the volume to my friend, who scanned the clippings within.

“Hum!” She exclaimed, energized by the scant description of the woman. “Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so!” Snapping the book shut, Holmes addressed the King once more in a brusque manner. “Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting those letters back.”

“Precisely so. But how—”

“Was there a secret marriage?”

“None.”

“No legal papers or certificates?”

“None.”

“Then I fail to follow your Majesty. If this young person should produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to prove their authenticity?”

“There is the writing.”

“Pooh, pooh! Forgery.”

“My private note-paper.”

“Stolen.”

“My own seal.”

“Imitated.”

“My photograph.”

“Bought.”

“We were both in the photograph.”

Holmes threw back her head and let out one of her barking laughs. It ruffled the King, like a large horned owl, yet brought a furtive smile to my face.

“Oh, dear! That is very bad!” Her knowledge of niceties always appeared to return slowly, and she made a feeble attempt to school herself into seriousness. “Your Majesty has indeed committed an indiscretion.”

“I was mad—insane.”

“You have compromised yourself seriously.”

“I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now.”

“It must be recovered.”

“We have tried and failed.”

“Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought.”

“She will not sell.”

“Stolen, then.”

“Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice she has been waylaid. There has been no result.”

“No sign of it?”

“Absolutely none.”

Holmes barked her amusement again. “It is quite a pretty little problem,” said she.

“But a very serious one to me,” returned the King reproachfully.

“Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the photograph?”

“To ruin me.”

“Why should she?”

“I am about to be married.”

“So I have heard.”

“To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her family. She is herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a doubt as to my conduct would bring the matter to an end.”

“And Irene Adler?”

“Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I know that she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men. Rather than I should marry another woman, there are no lengths to which she would not go—none.”

“You are sure that she has not sent it yet?”

“I am sure.”

“And why?”

“Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday.”

“Oh, then we have three days yet,” said Holmes with a yawn. “That is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in London for the present?”

“Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the Count Von Kramm.”

“Then, as to money?”

“You have carte blanche.”

“Absolutely?”

“I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to have that photograph.”

“And for present expenses?”

The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and laid it on the table.

“There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes,” he said.

Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of her notebook and handed it to him. “Then, goodnight, your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have some good news for you.”

Her dismissal was clear, and the King floundered for a moment. He bowed from the waist at Holmes, and then repeated the gesture to me, and turned to flounce from our rooms with dramatics rivaled only by my friend. We waited in mutual agreement until the wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street.

“An engaging trifle,” Holmes declared at last, striding to the window and twitching the curtains. “Hardly worth my time of course, but needs must and all that. So long as powerful men commit infidelity and indiscretions my coffers shall remain full.”

“Is that the ‘services to one of the royal houses of Europe’ you performed?” I asked.

“The reigning family of Holland,” Holmes told me. Her manner was bored, projecting that the matter was of no consequence. Yet I had been observing my friend for several years now. I could read in her infrequent looks to my direction, never landing upon my face, that there was more she was concealing from me. “A simple task, though delicate, that was concluded primarily through correspondence. This endeavor, on the contrary, shall require a fair bit of legwork!” This deft change of topic brought her gaze to mine, the zeal in her eye quite legitimate. “If you will be good enough to accompany me to the theater tomorrow, say five o’clock? I believe we might get started.”

 

* * *

 

‘Theater’, I learned upon that hour, had been a misnomer. Holmes greatly enjoyed attending operas and concertos at Her Majesty's or the Royal Opera House, and I found myself enthralled by the music in her presence in ways I had not prior. Holmes consumed music down to her very soul, revealing her sensitive nature when at all other times she appeared impassible.

The location she led me to that evening was not Covent or St. James or any other classical venue, but a common music hall. I could not hide my surprise, yet as she commanded a path through the crowd to the edge of the stage, I ruefully revised my thinking. My friend wore a man’s waistcoat and black tails, why should she avoid a place where crossdressing was the main entertainment. She had no qualms about visiting vulgar or disreputable places in pursuit of knowledge. This, I believed, would be no different.

“Relax, dear Watson,” Holmes chided in a low aside as the audience hollered for the next act, “None shall importune you while I am here. You are perfectly safe. Ease into the role of an interested onlooker and follow my lead.” The latter, at least, I was well acquainted with.

The stage was not of a scale for some of the entertainment I knew music halls presented: no tightropes or rings hung from the rafters. The first act we witnessed was a line of can-can dancers, which I averted my eyes from to consider the crowd. The audience was primarily young men, but there was not an insignificant amount of ladies present, who did not shy away from the act. As they left, Holmes startled me by clapping and shouting along with the men. Next came a contortionist, who managed to curl his hips behind his head and lift his legs into the air. I clapped, thinking this to be all, when an assistant produced a long lethal sword. The man opened his mouth wide. Gasping, I hid my face in Holmes’ shoulder, feeling her chuckle.

“The edges are blunt,” She assured me softly, “And he’s performed this feat without injury for many years. But your reaction is endearing, and may very well aid us.” I didn’t know what aid my fear could bring her, but I didn’t care in that moment. I waited until a roar of approval sounded that the trick was over, and looked back to see the assistant withdrawing the length of metal from the contortionist’s esophagus. I shuddered, and Holmes briefly rubbed my back.

As the contortionist scampered off the stage on his hands alone, a piano began a soft romantic melody. Strangely, my friend seemed to tense at this calming overture. I could not discern why, and watched as a man, dressed in loose trousers and with a white lily pinned to his black coat, took to the stage. He lifted the brim of his top hat, revealing darkly lined eyes that shined beneath the house lights. He leaned upon his walking stick, appearing to swoon as the piano decrescendoed.

“One April night when home returning, I saw him first,” The man sung in a crystal clear, dolce tenor, “Our glances met. His looks with fond affection burning, this beating heart can ne’er forget. And when he spoke in accent tender, with grace beyond the reach of art...”

It was as though a chasm had erupted beneath my feet and the entirety of the hall ignored my plight. Indeed, the audience seemed to revel in the performance. I looked sidelong at my friend, expecting to see, not shock, but indulgence or mirth at my own. Yet Holmes paid me not a whit of attention. She was enraptured by the deviant upon the stage.

“Ah then I felt I must surrender to him at once my maiden heart.” The man loosened his collar as he hit a high cadenza. A man in the back whistled, as he popped open a button, then two. I flushed so fiercely I felt aflame. “Pardon dearest lover, if in vain I strove,” The singer pulled off his gloves, revealing delicate slender fingers, “For indeed I’d rather die than lose your love,” The top hat was gone in a flourish, “This confession bringing blushes to my cheek,” The black jacket slid gently off his shoulders with a coy shrug, “Sweeter than all singing is to hear him speak.”

The piano took point once more and I began to realize my error: what easily passed for a tenor was in truth a contralto.

With a wink of her charcoal lined eye, Irene Adler sang, “He comes beneath my window nightly, I see his form, and I rejoice. While countless stars are shining brightly, I hear the tones of his dear voice. Then we exchange fond words and glances, and fondly speak our hopes and fear. Defying time and his mischances, we tinge with gold the coming year.” As she went into the vocal flourish, Irene plucked at her sleeve, which snapped off the bodice of the shirt as though awaiting her signal. To much applause, she removed the other sleeve, standing before the crowd unabashed in a neatly ripped shirt and trousers.

“Pardon dearest lover, if in vain I strove, for indeed I’d rather die than lose your love,” Irene sang, letting her voice rise to its highest octave, and for that instant it was not a comical farce or bawdy show, but a truly heartfelt entreaty that caught every breath in the house. “This confession bringing blushes to my cheek, sweeter than all singing is to hear him speak!”

The crowd burst into jubilant applause, none more so than my friend, who cried out, _"Deine Stimme klingt himmlisch!"_  I later learned which German phrase she used and its meaning, _Your voice is heavenly_. Ms. Adler took a deep bow followed by a curtsey done with an imaginary hem. She strode from the stage, for all the world as though fully dressed, as an assistant used a broom to gather the remains of her costume.

“Are you satisfied?” I asked my friend as soon as Ms. Adler was out of view. Holmes snapped to me as though coming out of a trance. My heart sank for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time.

“Very,” She answered, brusque, “Very indeed. Let us venture out, I require a quiet word.”

Rather than retrace our steps out the front, Holmes strode with purpose further inside, down steps to a side-door, and led me with a hand on my elbow through into an alley. It smelled strongly of manure, and I found the source at hand in a stable down the way. It was attached to the inn that shared a wall with the music hall. Holmes tapped her walking stick twice on a cobblestone then gestured down the alley.

“You slept through my early departure from 221B,” She remarked, “And so missed commenting on my costume. I sold eel pies to the hands at that inn, and discovered that nearly all of the performers of this hall enjoy discounted rooms for dressing and practice. Our quarry is one of these tenants. She lives quietly, seldom goes out, except when she sings, so say the ostlers. They also claim that, off the stage, she is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. Now the question is, where are we to find the photograph?”

“Where, indeed?”

“It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. A cabinet size plate is too large for easy concealment about a woman’s dress. She knows that the King is capable of having her waylaid and searched. Two attempts of the sort have already been made. We may take it, then, that she does not carry it about with her.”

“Nor her house, twice burgled.”

“And yet remember that she had resolved to use it within a few days. It must be where she can lay her hands upon it. And then there is the fact that a Prima donna of the Imperial Opera of Warsaw has no need to practice hours every day.”

I tipped my chin up to the inn. “You believe the photograph to be in her dressing room?”

“Naturally, my dear.”

“And how are you to look for it?”

“I will not look.”

“What then?”

“I will get her to show me.”

“But she will refuse.”

“She will not be able to. By the way, Watson, I shall want your cooperation.”

“I shall be delighted.”

“You don’t mind running a chance of arrest?”

“Not in a good cause.”

“Oh, the cause is excellent!”

“Then I am yours.”

“I was sure that I might rely on you.”

“But what is it you wish?

“You must leave that to me. There is only one point on which I must insist. You must not interfere, come what may. You understand?”

“I am to be neutral?”

“To do nothing whatever. Make your way into the stable yet at a vantage to view that open window.” She pointed to one two stories up with a linen curtain swaying gently. “A whelp of fourteen boasted of its clear line to her changing screen.”

“I understand.”

“You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you.”

“Yes.”

“And when I raise my hand—so—you will throw towards that straw-pile what I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You quite follow me?”

“Entirely.”

“It is nothing very formidable,” said she, taking a long cigar-shaped roll from her pocket. “It is an ordinary plumbers smoke rocket, fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. Your task is confined to that. You may then walk to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have made myself clear?”

“I am to remain neutral, to get in the stable, to watch for you, and at the signal to throw this object, then to raise the cry of fire, and to await you at the corner of the street.”

“Precisely.”

“Then you may entirely rely on me.”

“That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I prepare for the new role I have to play.”

 

* * *

 

I had a few minutes after Holmes departed to prepare myself. Concealing my gloves in the same handbag holding the smoke rocket, I made a show of rubbing my hands. A young ostler noticed my act, and solicitously suggested I step into the inn. I replied that I was only on my own for a moment, and could I merely shelter in the stable? Not wishing to refuse a lady of 30 of unknown standing, the boy allowed it, and quickly left me to my own devices. The interior of the stable was warm with the animals’ heat and smelled strongly of fodder. I felt out of place, but not more so than I had in the music hall.

My mind was consumed with Holmes’ attitude; at the outset this had seemed an ordinary case, and yet her fascination at Ms. Adler’s performance disturbed me. Her wide eyes fixed upon the stage intruded in my thoughts. Had she been anyone else in the world, I would have called her infatuated. But this was impossible; Sherlock Holmes did not fall prey to the softer emotions, she was not led by lust, she would not allow this debility to interfere in her work. She was on a case, I insisted to myself, and this passion she exhibited was no different to that she felt at discovering bootprints or gunpowder at the scene of a crime.

When my introspection had me so entangled, a light flared to life in the window I was set to watch. I stared as the profile of Irene passed the thin curtain: she was, I conceded, as lovely as Aphrodite, or Helen, or Godiva. Her features were round as a babydoll’s, with her hair cascading in tight waves that seemed to glide on air, the actor’s paint about her eyes and mouth bringing them sharply to the voyeur’s attention. My resolve nearly faltered, for how could our actions against so gentle a countenance be just, though to betray Holmes now would be the worst of sins. I held firm.

With a snap of her head she looked toward the door. A knock must have sounded, as she passed out of sight to it. I curled my fingers around the pipe rocket. Minutes ticked by, and I could not make out more than shifts in the light. Then, when I began to worry, Holmes familiar silhouette appeared in the window. She was without her top hat, and her hair was similarly loose, but even with her back to me I knew her. I observed her chin waggle, her shoulders shake, her hands gesticulate, though none of these were my signal. A shadow, first indistinct, took form as Irene drew close to my friend. Her hand alighted like a bird upon her collar.

I did not at the time attribute the burning in my heart to jealousy.

Forgoing Holmes entirely, I threw the rocket into a pile of damp straw. Instantly the fodder began to smoke and I cried, “Fire!” The poor stable hand who had sheltered me came running, flapping his hands, and I hurried off down the alley. Behind me I heard my alarm echoed by other well meaning bystanders, and the smell of flame overpowered the dung.

I was distracted by the mayhem I had knowingly caused and jumped when a hand slid into mine. Holmes appeared at my side with a murmur of, “Run,” and so we did. We gamboled pell-mell through side streets and mews that my companion navigated with ease. She slowed when the sounds of commotion were far beyond and took an abrupt turn to emerge onto a thoroughfare. She met my gaze, the both of us heaving for breath with windswept grins, and laughed brighter than the stars.

“Watson, you dark horse!” Holmes cried out. “So devious this devout wife has become!”

“Oh stop it!” I playfully shoved her to which she caught my hand and spun me in a dance.

“And how hale! Gone is my limping, wilted flower, you could outrun the Yard on those legs! Certainly Gregson would never catch you!”

“Then you shall pour my hot water in the morning,” retorted I, smiling in spite of the order, “When my knees refuse to transport me down the stairs.”

“For you, darling girl, I would boil the sea.”

Her extravagant regard brought back my shyness, and I shook my head fondly. “You have the photograph?” I inquired as to the task at hand.

“I know where it is.” This was not the answer I’d anticipated. Holmes allowed me to stare as she began to walk in the direction of Baker Street, and I gamely gave chase.

“And how did you find out?”

“She showed me, as I told you she would.”

I huffed, “I am still in the dark.”

“I do not wish to make a mystery,” merrily laughed Holmes. “The matter was perfectly simple. When a woman thinks that her dwelling is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it. In the case of the Darlington substitution scandal it was of use to me, and also in the Arnsworth Castle business. A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel box. Now it was clear to me that our lady of today had nothing more precious than what we are in quest of. Your alarm of fire was admirably done. She responded beautifully; a glance was all it took. The photograph is in a recess behind a sliding panel just above the right bell-pull.”

“Why did you not attempt to take it?”

“In full view of the lady herself? You marvel at my abilities, but even I am not so capable. No, I have made arrangements to return later tonight.”

“When?” I pressed.

Holmes ignored the question. “Alone, my dear. This is not something you should want to be involved with.”

“I have come this far with you, Ms. Holmes.”

“Ah the ‘Ms.’ returns, I truly have offended. I am grateful for your assistance, Watson, however you know some tasks are easier performed covertly, and I should be much obliged if you dropped the matter.”

This was unsatisfactory, and she knew it. Changing the subject, Holmes began regaling me with other entertainment she had witnessed in a similar vein. She described a case in which a female bodybuilder had been the primary suspect, when the culprit had instead been revealed as a mousy accountant. I was only half listening, and so when a voice muttered in my ear, “Goodnight,” I startled and whirled round.

“What is it?” Asked Holmes, alert as a hound to my distraction. I surveyed the street, the faint London bustle, and could spot no familiar figures.

“It’s nothing,” I assured my friend and myself, “My apologies.”

 

* * *

 

While in our rooms, I sensed Holmes was impatient with me. I reclined on our settee with a novel, something scandalous and French that I knew she must despise, and turned the pages with agonizing slowness. Holmes graduated from a cigarette to her pipe, huffing in agitation, and flitted restlessly from her violin to her chemical bench to a book she occasionally opened upside down.

At one point when she sighed something dreadful, I innocently said, “Mightn’t you quiet, Ms. Holmes, I am engaged in reading.”

“You have all the subterfuge of those infants you drag out screaming,” Holmes spat, her brows drawn so they touched above her hawkish beak.

“I’m not the one wasting His Majesty’s time hoping my flatmate will retire to bed so I might sneak out alone.”

“You can’t come.”

“As you say.”

“I can evade you.”

“You’ve no need, not when I know your destination.”

“Watson, this is too much!”

Throwing my novel to the floor, I leapt up. “I very well agree!”

Holmes stood as well, her countenance grim as a thunderclap, and tossed the contents of her pipe into the fire, popping and crackling. “I have told you as plain as I possibly could that you would only be a hindrance to me in my next task, without going so far as to be cruel—”

“I’m sorry,” I interjected, “This has been your show of restraint?”

“It’s the truth you’re after, is it?”

“If I am so bumbling and inept, why trust me with a pipe bomb and not this?”

The words flew from Holmes like loosed doves out a cage. “Because I plan to seduce Ms. Adler tonight.”

Well.

When my late husband and I advanced to Candahar with the sepoys and their elephant battery, I became familiar with Rifled Muzzle Loaders and large artillery. It was not until I was in the thick of the three hour duel above the dunes of Maiwand that I witnessed their awesome power. The shells rained like hail and the concussive blasts rattled me to my bones. I stitched and burned and pressed my own skirt into the wounds those explosives caused.

So when I tell you, gentle reader, that when Holmes said this I felt the blow in the core of me and my ears rang into sudden silence, it can be believed.

I could scarcely hear, and yet I felt my lips form the shape, “What?”

“Yes, Watson,” Holmes looked me baldly in the eye, “I intend to arrive at her room with a bottle of champagne. We’ll discuss opera and the stage and the difficulties of fitting waistcoats to feminine hips. At some point in the night I expect to perform cunnilingus on her. And when she is drunk and sated I shall slide open the panel and retrieve the photograph.”

The image of Irene’s touch upon my friend’s person returned to me. “You arranged this,” I realized with faint horror, “When you went to her, before the fire, you were asking to call on her.”

Holmes’ mouth curled into a sneer, as though I were a policeman she’d found contaminating a crime scene or a thickheaded witness. Certainly she had never directed that scorn at myself. It stung like salt.

“Your revulsion is noted, Watson. You see now why I’d thought to spare you the particulars.”

Revulsion, yes, I grasped onto the notion. It was my friend turning to debauchery that ailed my heart. That for all her intellectual superiority she would sink to the tactics of a Casanova to make off with her prize in the night.

“All told,” Holmes sniffed, quarter-turning away from me when I did not respond, “You are more her type than myself. It has been so long since I last played the ingénue. Let me see, how would you do it...” She tapped her lips with exaggerated revelation. Clasping her hands to her breast, and adopting a high pitch that nonetheless evoked my cadence, Holmes simpered, “‘Lick you where, dearest one? Good God and Heavens above, whatever for?’”

In a second, several things blurred together: Holmes reeled back, touching her jaw, and my palm smarted. As if in a trance, the both of us looked from my red right hand to meet each other’s shocked gaze.

Shocked, “Oh…” I breathed shakily. “Holmes, I....”

“Don’t,” My flatmate shook her head, tension in those little tendons, “Watson, let’s neither of us say anything more tonight.” I watched, frozen, as she took a halting step back, then strode off for her room. I listened as she moved, jostling, noises I couldn’t interpret, that my dread insisted were of her packing a suitcase to depart for good. My legs shook, and I could not say what kept me standing upright, when my soul had seemed to melt through the floor to Hell itself.

An eternity later and far too quick, Holmes emerged, a new outfit on, though her tie was off-kilter. She wore a hat braced for rain. She glanced at me, and I could hear the words she’d say on any other night: _Goodnight, Watson, I shall be careful, you need not fret._  Instead she passed from our home in silence.

I waited.

In the early hours of the evening, I sheltered in my bedroom, fully dressed, a significant part of myself expecting Holmes to return swiftly, perhaps with apologies, or with rage. As the clock atop my armoire ticked past midnight, the rage found me instead. I stomped downstairs and planted myself in my armchair, prepared to berate her for every slight she’d ever given me, as soon as she came through that door. Cowardice came next, and I returned upstairs, changed into my nightclothes, and attempted to sleep; I hoped that we might pretend the altercation never occurred come morning.

And then, as one o’clock ticked on, and two, I took down the clock. I ventured to the stairs but sat upon the steps rather than descended. Cradling the clock in my lap as a child might a beloved doll, I let the time slip by.

In what condition would she return, I wondered, if she was to at all. Would she reek of exotic perfume? Would her cheeks and shirt collar be smudged with rouge? Would I catch a small bruise upon some exposed flesh? No, these were signs reserved for kissing, I knew not what effect… I hesitate to write the word as much as I did think it then… _Cunnilingus_ might leave upon a person. Could I even know to look at her that she had followed through with this notion? She’d been right to call me ignorant, I flushed at the very idea of the act. My mind, try as it might to torment me, didn’t know enough to visualize Holmes and Irene in such a position. It was no wonder she would seek out worldly women like Irene to provide what I could not.

My foolishness was catching up to me, exasperating my shame. Holmes had made me no promises and, more so, she had told me no lies. It was girlish stupidity that had caused me to hope that if she went looking for love, she would find it closer to home.

Three o’clock, seventeen minutes past, ante meridiem; that was when I heard the slightest creak from the downstairs. Holmes must have entered the building with utmost care to be so silent. Torn between the conflicting urge to run downstairs and to cower in bed, I remained paralyzed, hardly daring to breathe. The whisper of her bedroom door closing sounded blissful, like church bells, when I had feared her gone forever.

 

* * *

 

My night passed fitfully so that when I observed the dawn light creeping over the horizon, I took myself downstairs. Odd it was indeed to see the sitting room at the unusual hour, and I fled to the kitchens. While I lacked Mrs. Hudson’s skill, I could brew a dark, rancid batch of tea, and this I drank over the sink. I returned upstairs to the desolate flat. In this new bout of waiting, I near chewed my nails to the bone.

It was a later hour, with London well and truly awake and after Mrs. Hudson had delivered a much needed fresh pot, when my flatmate burst from her chambers. In her dressing gown and with her hair loosely plaited, and that manic gleam infusing her, it might have been any other morning. The incongruity of it spun my head.

“Ready yourself, Watson,” She declared grandly, “We shall be entertaining His Majesty within the next half hour, and surely you won’t greet him like that!”

I too was in my thin nightgown, but I was too relieved not to be met with last night’s rancor to take offense. “He is coming here?” The pieces came together abrupt. I mustered a smile. “You are to present him with the photograph, of course, how… wonderful.”

“Incorrect,” said Holmes, grabbing a cup and downing it swiftly. “Had you observed rather than supposed, you could have deduced as much.”

At this rebuke I attempted to utilize her methods but found only a confirmation of my fears: lines of stress beneath the eyes spoke of little sleep, she smelled strongly of our soap, and hairs protruded from her plait, which indicated to me the braiding had been done after something, fingers no doubt, tangled the raven locks awfully.

“I’m left in the dark,” I confessed, wistfully, “As usual.”

Holmes poured herself a second cup, and drank it as she had the first. Smacking her lips, she looked down her nose at me. “The opportunity did not arise. We shall instead lead His Majesty to the Inn and retrieve his desire before him. Dress, Watson, and we shall end this nasty business.”

As grateful as if the guillotine had cracked, I rushed up to do as she bade. I dressed in clean, bright white, and took care brushing and pinning up my mousy mess. My skirts seemed buoyant as I fluttered down the stairs, and found Holmes. While she was dressed, there were minuscule imperfections, and I found myself reaching hand outstretched to adjust her collar. I stayed my hand, chagrined, and turned away.

“Watson,” I heard, though any more was forestalled by the entrance of our guest below. We schooled ourselves respectively, myself by smoothing my skirts and Holmes by drawing up haughtily. His Majesty stormed in, a black mask once again concealing his eyes and nose.

“Madame Holmes,” The King boomed, “Your telegram was delivered at a peculiar hour and had not the information I expected. You say you know the photograph’s location though do not possess it?”

“Extracting it myself proved impossible,” Holmes informed him, brooking no argument, “Yet I assure Your Majesty that it is as good as yours. If there are no objections to setting out immediately?”

“Objections? No, no, I should rather this be done with.”

“Good. Come, Watson.” Striding past the royal, Holmes led our strange procession to the street, and gave directions to the King’s brougham. We clambered in to the grandest carriage I’ve ever seen in my life. The ride was awkward, myself and Holmes sat beside one another under the gaze of the Bohemian, yet made up for this fact by being short.

“Truly, Ms. Holmes!” The King protested upon seeing our destination. I could understand his concern: a royal known to enter a low establishment such as this would be a minor scandal in and of itself.

Holmes retorted, “Truly, Your Majesty. I am well aware, you hired me not only for my pristine reputation, but to claim plausible deniability should I bungle the matter. No one would believe the word of a woman, let alone the epithets your people could pile upon me, isn’t that right?” The King sputtered, and I coughed into my hand, thinking unkindly of him. “There is no reason you should deny it, I accept these risks as a cost of doing business. I tell you this now to assure you: no one shall look at you twice. Using your generous funds, I have employed the workers inside for the day, and impressed upon them the virtue of discretion.”

I summarized for our client’s benefit, “Holmes means to say she has bribed the staff. Your reputation is quite safe.”

The King sniffed. “Very well, let us go with haste.”

It was something else to stride inside the Inn than to view it from the back. To be truthful, the Inn was in better condition than I had assumed; it was fairly clean, the ground floor was warm and well lit, and there were no disreputable looking people glaring at us around corners. With knowledgeable steps, Holmes led us up to Irene’s room. She knocked and, after a pause, the door opened from within.

“Yes?” A diminutive girl in a maid’s outfit met us. As she recognized Holmes, she dropped her gaze and curtsied. “I was cleaning, ma’am, no one told us we weren’t meant to clean.”

I noted my friend frown. “Where is the occupant?”

The maid opened the door and stepped back, and the three of us filed into the otherwise empty room. A damp rag lay on the vanity, yet the remains of face powder showed where it had been strewn with personal effects. Irene had even taken her linen curtains. I could not direct my gaze at the bed, noting only from my periphery that it was unmade.

“Dunno, ma’am,” The maid answered. “This ‘un showed up on the list, rooms for cleaning, that is, ma’am.”

“Desist with _ma’am_ if you please,” muttered Holmes absently, surveying the room. I watched her eyes alight on the servant’s bell, and she leapt for it. Her fingernails scrabbled at the wall for a few futile moments before the panel gave way. I heard her inhale and mumble, “No.”

Curious beyond reason, I pressed myself in behind her so that I might look. The panel contained a photograph, cabinet sized, standing up at an angle to fit, and an envelope. Holmes withdrew both with shaking hands. The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in an elegant evening gown, while the letter was superscribed to “Sherlock Holmes. To be left till called for.” My friend tore it open and she and I read it together. It was dated at midnight of the preceding night and ran in this way:

> _MY DEAR MS. SHERLOCK HOLMES,_   
>  _You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly be the immensely intelligent transvestite of Baker Street. Yet, with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was really an object of interest to the celebrated Sherlock Holmes. I even, rather impudently, wished your fair companion a goodnight._   
>  _I thought the best resource was flight when pursued by so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you call tomorrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to possess; and I remain, dear Mistress Holmes,_   
>  _Very truly yours,_   
>  _IRENE ADLER_

“What a woman—oh, what a woman!” cried the King of Bohemia, when Holmes had relayed its contents to him. “Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?”

“From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your Majesty,” said Holmes coldly. “I am sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty’s business to a more successful conclusion.”

“On the contrary, my dear madame,” cried the King, “Nothing could be more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire.”

“I am glad to hear your Majesty say so.”

“I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward you. This ring—” He slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.

“Your Majesty has something which I should value even more highly,” said Holmes, barely deigning to glance at the jewel.

“You have but to name it.”

“This photograph.”

The King stared in amazement. “Irene’s photograph!” He exclaimed. “Certainly, if you wish it.”

“I thank your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good morning.” She bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the King had stretched out to her, set off in my company for our chambers.

As we stepped in unison down the London sidewalk, I found myself saying what I could not earlier. “Holmes, I am sorry.” I meant everything I possibly could. I was sorry to have hindered her investigation with my emotive outburst. I was sorry to have ever brought her pain through violence. I was sorry to have made my regard so obvious. I was sorry this case would remain a black blot upon her record. I was sorry that she met this cunning winsome creature for so brief a time. I was sorry Irene was gone.

Holmes stayed me with a gentle touch to my shoulder, turning me to face her. Bystanders brushed by us, but as is the way of a city, paid us no mind. Although she clutched Irene’s photograph to her side, Holmes afforded me her full attention. Without a word, her lips pulled up, and she touched two fingers to my cheek. All of the world righted itself; with that one gesture I knew I was forgiven.

Smiling that enigmatic smile, Holmes said faintly, “Grit in the instrument.”

We never again mentioned that exchange, and although Irene’s photograph was placed reverently on our mantle, Holmes rarely brought her up in conversation. When she was mentioned, Holmes referred to her simply as “The Woman.”

Only I knew the truth. Irene Adler was the love of Sherlock Holmes’ life, torn from her by the very circumstances that brought them together. Never again would Holmes find a creature of unparalleled intellect who simultaneously inspired the flame of passion in her inhospitable heart. I would stand by, offering what companionship she would allow, and pray that my weak feelings would not impede her happiness in the future. It was all I could do for the woman who, through this misadventure, I recognized the depths of my adoration for at last.

 

 

 

(Beneath this missive, a different, scrawling hand has annotated:)

 

Oh Watson, your powers of perception are unrivaled. Who else could look upon such evidence and form so erroneous a conclusion? You are lucky, my love, that I can read you better than the inverse.


	3. The Final Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I alone know the absolute truth of her demise, and should such a day come that I may release these papers, I would rather the events be fresh in my mind.

 

_ (Discovered in a lockbox, beneath the floorboards of the second bedroom, of 221B Baker St) _

 

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Ms. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. Journaling has since childhood been my method of working through my own emotions, and I have through the years employed this to chronicle, incoherently and I deeply feel inadequately, the adventures my association with Holmes provided. Although nothing in the world could pain me more, it is a disservice to leave out the case that brought Holmes the most pride, and myself the most sorrow.

The ignorant public may not feel the loss of Holmes keenly, but it lurks in shadows and darkens every aspect of London life. Her machinations were obfuscated by the opinion held of her sex, yet without her Scotland Yard were little more than headless chickens. Had they been capable of the tasks Sherlock placed upon their shoulders, she may yet live.

I alone know the absolute truth of her demise, and should such a day come that I may release these papers, I would rather the events be fresh in my mind. As far as I know, there have been only two accounts in the public press: that in the  _ Journal de Geneve _ on May 6th, 1891, and the  _ Reuter’s _ dispatch in the English papers on May 7th. The accounts were extremely condensed and condescending to the subject, the “Tomboy Detective”. It lies with me to record for the first time what really took place between Professor Moriarty and Ms. Sherlock Holmes.

It began innocuously enough, at least what I noted of it. My time became split between 221B and my newfound profession as a midwife, and the Winter and early Spring of 1891 were fruitful indeed. There came a stretch of time in which Holmes and myself barely spoke, one of us always rushing out the door at the beckoning of sudden death or sudden life. I recall remarking one harried evening, after the successful delivery of twins, upon the circumstances of her overburdened workload. My friend was looking paler and more emaciated than ever I’d seen her.

She smoked, peering out the window, and then asked. “Have you any objection to my drawing the curtains?” When I replied none, she did so, leaving only the dull lamplight.

“You are afraid of something?” I guessed, not truly believing it.

“Well,” drawled Sherlock, not meeting my gaze, “I am.”

“Of what?”

She shrugged as if it were of no consequence, “Of air-guns.”

“My dear Holmes, what do you mean?”

“I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by no means of a nervous sort. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.”

“Which of your current cases carries the danger of air-guns?”

“All of them,” Holmes answered, and continued in so low a tone I strained to listen, “I am close, so very close, to the heart of it all.” Then without a word of goodnight, she awayed to her room. I was familiar with her moods, the way her attention could fix on me in one instant and decamp the next. I had long resigned myself to it and discouraged myself from taking offense.

 

* * *

The majority of that week was quiet for me, save for calling on the new mothers to be certain of their recovery, though obviously was not so for Holmes. I did not see her until Thursday evening, when she burst in on me supping Mrs. Hudson’s good faire. Her mania was clear, as she bubbled with laughter.

“It’s done! My dearest, loveliest Watson,” Her compliments in such a mood never failed to make me flush, “My career has reached its summit! No more need you toil on your knees bringing screaming whelps into this world. We may be free of the drudgery of urban life. What say you to a spot in the country?”

I’m sure I shook my head indulgently. She accepted water when I pressed it into her hands, and I nudged her to explain.

“I could not rest until I dismantled this invisible vice upon London, but now that it is well in motion, the time has come that we can consider it. The recent cases in which I have been of assistance to the royal family of Scandinavia, and to the French republic, have left me in such a position that I could continue to live in a quiet fashion and concentrate my attention upon my chemical researches. In addition I’m most interested in building an apiary, beekeeping is a longstanding fascination of mine. Can you not picture it, Watson? The bees pollinating the rose garden, and a shady tree under which you may do your reading on a temperate Summer day?”

“It is a charming vision, Holmes. However I still wonder, why now? What is this  _ coup-de-grâce _ of yours?”

“As you are aware, Watson, there is no one who knows the higher criminal world of London so well as I do. For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrongdoer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts—forgery cases, robberies, murders—I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity.”

It sounded fantastical, some overarching villain, a mastermind at play, yet I confessed, “I’ve never heard of Moriarty.”

“Aye, there’s the genius and the wonder of the thing!” Holmes cried, pale eyes shining with vigor. “The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. That’s what puts him on a pinnacle in the records of crime.”

I settled in for what seemed sure to be a lengthy story. Mindful was I, however, to take her declarations with some salt when she was in such a fitful state. It appeared doubtful the girl had slept for days, and had more likely subsisted on opium in that span.

“He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain

of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans. But his agents are numerous and splendidly organized. Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed—the word is passed to the Professor, the matter is organized and carried out. The agent may be caught. In that case money is found for his bail or his defense. But the central power which uses the agent is never caught—never so much as suspected. This was the organization which I deduced, Watson, and which I devoted my whole energy to exposing and breaking up.

“But the Professor was fenced round with safeguards so cunningly devised that it seemed impossible to get evidence which would convict in a court of law. You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal.”

The admiration with which she spoke disturbed me on a level I did not like to examine. It was no secret that Holmes possessed intellect that I could not compete with; seldom did I try. I didn’t like to think that her mind had grown stagnant with only my stimulation.

“But at last he made a trip—only a little, little trip—but it was more than he could afford when I was so close upon him. I had my chance, and, starting from that point, I have woven my net round him until now it is all ready to close. On Monday next matters will be ripe, and the Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police. Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them; but if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out of our hands even at the last moment.”

“You’ve been working with Lestrade then?”

Predictably, her lip curled. “Yes. However, my name shall be inextricable from the culmination of the case. I am the one with all the facts, and soon I will be sitting in the box reciting all. Lestrade has assured me of that much.”

“In that case, I’m very proud,” I pat her hand, the gesture not coming out as maternal as I’d intended, “That you should put aside your pride for the sake of justice.” It also meant that her deductions were accurate, for even in an opium haze she would never bring Scotland Yard less than absolute fact.

She turned her palm up and stroked the inside of my wrist. Much in the same way as her cutting indifference, I’d been forced to overlook these small moments of sensual tension. If romantic inclinations towards me ever did occur to her, they apparently did not last beyond these fleeting seconds. Soon enough she would regard me as she would the skull on the mantle or her delicate chemical instruments; decorative, momentarily useful, but ultimately inconsequential.

 

* * *

That night I could find no relief from Morpheus and I dawdled in bed through dawn, kneading the puckered flesh of my shoulder. Sweat soaked through my nightgown, and I lingered again in my bathtub. By the time I bound myself up in the drawers and girdle of the day, I had missed Mrs. Hudson’s breakfast offerings. I could hear voices in the sitting room as I achingly descended the stairs.

“You evidently don’t know me,” Said a male voice, of a high and wavering pitch. One could not call him polite, but rather stiff, formal.

“On the contrary, I think it is fairly evident that I do.” I drew short on hearing the wound coil of tension of my friend. “Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to say.” I teetered on the edge of the landing, hesitating to make myself known. My revolver was in the desk drawer, an insurmountable distance. I resolved to eavesdrop and provide assistance if necessary.

The man replied pleasantly, “All that I have to say has already crossed your mind.”

“Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.”

“You stand fast?”

“Absolutely.”

They were conversing whip quick, and it occurred to me who the stranger must be: Professor Moriarty.

“You crossed my path on the 4th of January,” said he. “On the 23d you incommoded me; by the  middle of February I was seriously inconvenienced by you; at the end of March I was absolutely hampered in my plans; and now, at the close of April, I find myself placed in such a position through your continual persecution that I am in positive danger of losing my liberty. The situation is becoming an impossible one.”

“Have you any suggestion to make?” I winced at the evident arrogance of her retort.

As I expected, the Professor was not amused. “You must drop it, Ms. Holmes. You really must, you know.’

“After Monday,”

“You are a woman of extraordinary intelligence, Ms. Holmes, and so you must see there is but  one outcome to this affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. You have worked things in such a fashion that we have only one recourse. It has been an intellectual treat to see the way in which you have grappled with this affair, and I tell you, ardently, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure. You smile, madam, but I assure you that it really would.”

“Danger is a part of my trade.”

“This is not danger,” he insisted, menace filtering in, “It is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize. You must stand clear, Ms. Holmes, or be trodden under foot.“

There was the familiar squeak of the armchair’s springs. “I am afraid that in the pleasure of this conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me elsewhere.”

A long pause ensued, in which I hardly dared to breathe.

“Well, well, It seems a pity, but I have done what I could. I know every move of your game, Ms. Holmes. You can do nothing before Monday. A gentleman doesn’t duel with ladies, but here we are, neither of us what we claim to be. If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.”

“You have paid me several compliments, Mr. Moriarty,” My friend’s stoic tones rose and fell melodically, “Let me pay you one in return when I say that if I were assured of the former  eventuality, I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept the latter.”

“So you claim now, when it is your pretty neck you envision in my noose. If it were Mrs. Watson’s instead?” The sudden use of my name startled me, though I stifled any noise. I may have missed Holmes’ response, if she gave one. “Think on that, madam, and we shall see where we all stand on Monday.”

The closing of the door rattled through the flat, which hung in uncertainty for a long moment.

“You may come out, Watson,” Sherlock called, sounding cooly unaffected. Baffled, I stepped down and emerged into the sitting room. Holmes stood alone, her hair in loose disarray, covered by her dressing gown, my revolver limply aimed at the floor.

“Did you know I was there the whole time?”

“Not for the most part, the Professor gave you away at the end.” She traded my revolver for a cigarette. Ah, I nodded, the jibe at me had been partly for my ears. “It’s pointless asking you not to dwell on what you overheard. Rather take heart, threats such as these are the clearest indicator that we are in the last stretch.”

“Why not take police precautions against him?”

“I am well convinced that it is from his agents the blow would fall. There would be nothing gained by apprehending some thug with no possible connection to the retiring mathematical coach surely working out problems upon a blackboard ten miles away.”

“You would be safe, Holmes, that’s gain enough.” She waved my point away as one would a gnat. This irritated me greatly, and I crossed the room to pointedly take back my gun, and plant myself in the armchair facing the door. My act of defiance, or loyalty, failed to impress her, as she descended into one of her long strings of smoking and idle torturing of the violin.

 

* * *

At some point, Holmes’ bravado must have infected me. The next day my friend was nowhere to be found in the flat, and with an aggrieved huff, I went about running errands. I was returning to our rooms, swinging a basket from my wrist, when someone grabbed hold and tugged. Instinct took hold, and I dropped the basket, whirling and grasping for my hatpin.

“Watson, it’s me!” Cried my attacker in Holmes’ voice, and I froze as she leaned out from the alley. Her appearance was haggard, her waistcoat askew and jacket dusty, and she beckoned me with bloody knuckles.

I drew into the alley with her. “Dear God, what’s happened?”

“Never mind what’s happened, the immediate future is more dire. The Professor’s roughs have plans to burn our rooms.” My heart seized in apprehension.

Most urgently I uttered, “Mrs. Hudson—”

“I have just come from warning her, she is on her way to her sister’s. It is obvious that I cannot do better than get away for the few days which remain before the police are at liberty to act. It would be a great pleasure to me, therefore, if you could come on to the Continent with me.”

“Holmes, really, need you even ask?” My friend’s pallor cleared with a delicate blush, the lines around her eyes smoothing for the first time in weeks. Nothing was ever sweeter than the shy smile that came over her lips.

“Then these are your instructions, and I beg, my dear Watson, that you will obey them to the letter, for you are now playing a double-handed game with me against the cleverest rogue and the most powerful syndicate of criminals in Europe. Now listen!” What followed was an elaborate series of hansoms and dashes through crowded thoroughfares. In the moment I memorized all of it to the letter, but it’s since been lost.

“Where shall I meet you?”

“At the station. The second first-class carriage from the front.”

“The carriage is our rendezvous, then?”

“Yes.” She clasped my shoulders, a quick, bracing touch, and murmured, “Good luck.”

 

* * *

We played cat and mouse with Moriarty through Victoria Station, to Canterbury, to Newhaven. There was little doubt that where once Moriarty had been Holmes’ quarry, the roles had firmly reversed. It would seem that the minute we settled somewhere, an automobile would roar up, spitting fire and debris, and Holmes would drag me onwards.

We spent two days in Brussels, moving the third day as far as Strasburg. On the fateful Monday morning that ought to have been the end of it, Holmes telegraphed to the London police. A reply came that evening at our hotel. Holmes tore it open, and then with a bitter curse hurled it into the grate.

“I might have known!” Holmes groaned, rubbing her temples. “The damn fools!”

“He escaped?” I surmised, biting my lip, “Moriarty?”

“They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him. He has given them the slip. Of course, when I had left the country there was no one to cope with him. But I did think that I had put the game in their hands. Such is the competency of our constabulary.” She sighed, sinking into the plush mattress. Doleful, she raised her head to consider me. “I think that you had better return to England, Watson.”

“Whatever for?”

“Because you will find me a dangerous companion now. This man’s occupation is gone. He is lost if he returns to London. If I read his character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging himself upon me. He said as much in our short interview, and I fancy that he meant it.”

“You’ll recall he mentioned me as well,” I prodded her. “I’m not about to abandon you in a foreign land when we are the both of us in his sights.”

She didn’t voice her displeasure, but then she didn’t have to. We undressed and readied for bed with our backs to each other, a queer electricity to the room. The bed was large enough to share, and the hotel management hadn’t batted an eye at two ladies of our age, one widowed, requesting a single room. Perhaps he presumed me Holmes’ chaperone. The thought was equally ridiculous and depressing.

I lay on my side of the bed, drumming my fingers on my stomach, as Sherlock snuffed the candle. The darkness swooped in, heavy over the sounds of my friend slipping between the sheets.

Quietly, she said to me, “It will be dangerous.”

I replied, “Danger is our trade, after all.” Helpless to stop myself, my head turned on my pillow to see her likewise looking at me. I smiled, and slowly, jerkily, she returned it. There we were, grinning like fools at each other across the bed. To look at us, one might think we were sisters, though there was nothing familial in my feelings for Sherlock.

Why did I not cross that grand divide? Why did I hesitate to cup her alabaster cheek in my hand? Could I not have pressed my lips to any part of her face and taken what may come? Surely I was a coward, no matter what Sherlock believed, because there was nothing I’ve ever done more cowardly than turning away from her and feigning sleep.

 

* * *

For a blissful week, we wandered up the Valley of the Rhone, and then, branching off at Leuk, we made our way over the Gemmi Pass, still deep in snow, and by way of Interlaken to Meiringen. It was a lovely trip, but it was clear to me that never for one instant did Holmes forget the shadow which lay across us. 

In the homely Alpine villages or in the lonely mountain passes, I could tell by her quick glancing eyes and her sharp scrutiny of every face that passed us, that she was well convinced that, walk where we would, we could not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our footsteps. And yet for all her watchfulness she was never depressed. On the contrary, I can never recollect having seen her in such exuberant spirits. Again and again, she reiterated the fact that if she could be assured that society was freed from Professor Moriarty, she would cheerfully bring her own career to a conclusion.

“I think that I may go so far as to say, Watson, that I have not lived wholly in vain,” she remarked over a meal. “If my record were closed tonight I could still survey it with equanimity. The air of London is the sweeter for my presence. Of late I have been tempted to look into the problems furnished by nature rather than those more superficial ones for which our artificial state of society is responsible.” Sipping at the delicate white wine we shared, Sherlock casually asked, “Thought you any more of my proposal?”

Her choice of words caused me to drop my fork. The clatter drew some curious gazes that raised Holmes’ hackles. Curtly, she directed, “Finish your food, quickly.”

Between ungracefully large bites, I managed to ask, “Which proposal was this? To what are you referring?”

“A cottage,” She spoke as though to one especially dim, “In the country. Your tatter-bound drivel on the shelves beside my chemistry texts. A beehive by a flower garden. Retirement, Watson, a peaceful conclusion to those memoirs of which you are so reticent.”

Blinking dumbly, eventually I replied, “I hadn’t realized you were serious.”

Her mouth thinned, brows drawing down, and were she a foul her feathers would be puffed out and ruffled. “I am seldom in the habit of joking of such matters.” Whatever ‘such matters’ consisted of, I couldn’t guess. However this affront couldn’t last in the face of her cheerful disposition. “Ah well, you may ruminate on it. Another hasty egress awaits us, I’m afraid.”

 

* * *

It was on the third of May that we reached the little village of Meiringen. Our landlord was an intelligent man who spoke excellent English. At his advice, on the afternoon of the fourth we set off together, with the intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the hamlet of Rosenlaui. We had strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about halfway up the hill, without making a small detour to see them.

The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, descends and narrows into a foaming, boiling pit. The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, may turn one giddy with their constant whirl and clamor. We stood near the edge peering down at the gleam of the breaking water far below us against the black rocks, and listening to the half-human shout which came booming up with the spray out of the abyss.

“Marvelous,” I exclaimed, “Is this one of those ‘natural’ wonders you endeavor to devote yourself to, do you think, Holmes?”

I swiveled my gaze to my companion, who was regarding me with the rapture I expected directed to the falls. “No, Jane,” declared Sherlock, the first inkling she ever gave of knowing my given name, let alone using it, “The matters that consume me are of winged flight, not falling, not darkness, not ruin.”

I laughed, “Your damnable bees, will I never hear the end of it?”

“Oh Watson, I do hope you never will.” She surprised me with her insistence. Though she stood beside me, her elbow warm in every brush against mine, it seemed as though she were somewhere high above that I couldn’t reach. “I’ve hoped for a long future of rattling your cage, years of leaving mold-lined cups in the sink, decades of pillows chucked across the sitting room, an eternity of your sighs and groans and rants and whinging. I swear to you, to God, to all who would bear witness, that I would adore every second of it.”

Tears welled in my eyes, and cascaded down my cheeks as if the falls of Reichenbach had instructed them how. This was not one of Sherlock’s manic episodes, her fleeting flirtations with the nearest body, or a depressive conjecture of woe. Here was Sherlock of sound mind, a little wistful, declaring what I had held fast in my heart of hearts.

With the thundering of the falls surrounding us, I spread my fingers and nudged the back of my palm to hers. My blood pounded reproach and doubt in my ears, until Sherlock grasped my hand and knit tight our fingers.

We had scarcely a minute of peace. “Madam Watson!” The mangled english pierced our cocoon, and propriety rushed in. I let go; why did I ever let go?

A Swiss lad came running along the path with a letter in his hand. It bore the mark of the hotel which we had just left, and was addressed to me by the landlord. Reading it revealed that, within a very few minutes of our leaving, an English lady had arrived who was in the last stage of consumption. It was thought that she could hardly live a few hours. The postscript assured me that the doctor would himself look upon my compliance as a very great favor, since the lady absolutely refused to be seen by a man without a nurse’s presence. The appeal was one which could not be ignored. Yet I had my reservations about leaving Holmes. 

“Do go on, my dear,” Holmes assured me, eyes soft and mouth lax in lazy smile, “I will catch up.”

“You are certain it’s safe?”

“I have this strapping young lad,” Sherlock gestured at the Swiss, “To guide me back. Your patient requires you more urgently than I at present.”

Persuaded, I turned away and set out along the winding path to the hotel. Perhaps Providence gifted me with premonition, as I glanced back before the sharp curve would obscure her forever. Sherlock stood with her back against a rock and her arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. The windborne spray whipped her loose tendrils of hair and grasped at the ends of her coat. If there were ever angels in heaven, my Sherlock was their equal in this world.

It may have been a little over an hour before I reached Meiringen. Old Steiler, the landlord, was standing at the porch of his hotel.

“Well sir,” said I, as I came hurrying up, “I trust that she is no worse?”

At the first quiver of his eyebrows, the mark of his surprise, my heart turned to lead in my breast. A sickening suspicion grew, and I pulled the letter from my handbag.

“There is no sick Englishwoman in the hotel?”

“Certainly not!” he cried. “But it has the hotel mark upon it! Ha, it must have been written by that tall Englishman who came in after you had gone. He said—”

But I waited for none of the landlord’s explanations.

In a tingle of fear, I was already running down the village street, and making for the path which I had so lately descended. It had taken me an hour to come down. For all my efforts two more had passed before I found myself at the fall of Reichenbach once more.

There was no sign of her, nor the Swiss lad, and it was in vain that I shouted. My only answer was my own voice reverberating in a rolling echo from the cliffs around me. I stood for a minute or two to collect myself.  _ Where there is imagination there is horror. _ Holmes had said that to me once, years prior, and never had it proved more true to me.

I badgered myself to think of Holmes’s own methods and put them into practice. It was, I’m afraid, only too easy to do. During our conversation we had not gone to the end of the path, yet there were two lines of footmarks clearly marked in the blackish soil, both leading away from me. There were none returning. A few yards from the end the soil was all ploughed up into a patch of mud, and the branches and ferns which fringed the chasm were torn and bedraggled. I clambered down on hands and knees and peered over the cliff’s edge. The sky had darkened since I left, and I could only make out the glistening of moisture upon the black walls, and the gleam of the broken water far below. I shouted; but only the same half-human cry of the fall was borne back to my ears.

 

_ (Beneath the writings of Mrs. J. H. Watson lie three pages torn from a notebook) _

 

_ My Dear Watson, _

_ I write these few lines through the courtesy of Mr. Moriarty, who awaits my convenience for the final discussion of those questions which lie between us. He has been giving me a sketch of the methods by which he avoided the English police and kept himself informed of our movements. They certainly confirm the very high opinion which I had formed of his abilities. I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you. _

_ I have already explained to you, however, that my career had in any case reached its crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this. Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort would follow. _

_ Tell Inspector Lestrade that the papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed “Moriarty.” I made every disposition of my property before leaving England, and handed it to my brother Mycroft. Pray give my farewell to Mrs. Hudson, and believe me to be, my dearest lady, _

_ — Very sincerely yours, _

_ Sherlock Holmes _

 


	4. The Empty House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The disappearance of my flatmate, friend, and love, the late Sherlock Holmes, had left me floating bereft through life.

_(A clipping from_ The Illustrated Police News, _dated in the Spring of 1894)_

 

> _Death came in a most strange and unexpected form between the hours of ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30, 1894. The Honourable Ronald Adair, second son of the Earl of Maynooth and Governor of one of the Australian Colonies. Adair’s mother had returned from Australia, and she, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were living together at 427 Park Lane. The youth’s engagement to Miss Edith Woodley, of Carstairs, had been broken off by mutual consent some months before, without evident ill-will._
> 
> _Ronald Adair was a member of the Baldwin, the Cavendish, and the Bagatelle card clubs. After dinner on the day of his death, he had played a rubber of whist in the company of Mr. Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran. He played nearly every day, but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a winner. At the inquest it came out that in partnership with Colonel Moran he had won as much as four hundred and twenty pounds in a sitting some weeks before from Godfrey Milner and Lord Balmoral._
> 
> _On the evening of the crime he returned from the Bagatelle club exactly at ten. His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a relation. The servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room on the second floor, generally used as his sitting room. She had lit a fire there, and as it smoked she had opened the window. No sound was heard from the room until eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of Lady Maynooth and her daughter. Desiring to say goodnight, she had attempted to enter her son’s room. The door was locked on the inside, and no answer could be got to their cries and knocking. Help was obtained and the door forced. The unfortunate young man was found lying near the table. His head had been horribly mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of any sort was to be found in the room. On the table lay two banknotes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in silver and gold, the money arranged in little piles of varying amounts, precluding the possibility of robbery._
> 
> _Says Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, “It is our belief that Adair was alone, and before his death, he was endeavouring to make out his losses or winnings at cards. Apparently, it was the young man himself who had fastened the door. No one could have climbed up to the window without leaving traces. Neither could the assailant have dropped the twenty feet from the window, as neither the bed of flowers below nor the earth showed any sign of having been disturbed. Park Lane is a frequented thoroughfare, and there is a cabstand within a hundred yards of the house. No one heard a shot.”_
> 
> _And yet there was the dead man, and there the revolver bullet, and so inflicted a wound which must have caused instantaneous death. Such are the circumstances of the Park Lane Mystery..._

 

* * *

 

The disappearance of my flatmate, friend, and love, the late Sherlock Holmes, had left me floating bereft through life. There was no one in my life, save the understanding Mrs. Hudson, to note my return to mourning wear, but I felt the devotion in the black garb in the three years following her death that I failed to emulate in the passing of my husband.

While I mitigated my grief by distancing myself from the criminal tribulations of London, there was no escaping the tragedy of Ronald Adair. The scandal and mystery of the deed stimulated all of proper society. For myself, although talk of crime left a sour note upon my tongue, there was a singular detail that drew me into the matter: that is the involvement of Colonel Sebastian Moran.

The afternoon after crossing Moran’s name in the _Evening Standard,_  I gave Mrs. Hudson explicit notice of my whereabouts before calling a cab to the Bagatelle club. In the entry room, I requested of the steward the presence of Colonel Moran, and waited, observing what glimpses I could gather. Given that one of their members had only recently been brutally murdered, they were in markedly good spirits.

“This is a shock!” Though polished by Eton and Oxford grooming, Moran’s voice boomed against the club’s ebony wood walls. I raised my chin at his approach, and the supercilious way he tipped his hat. “Jane Harriet _Watson._  I had the man repeat it twice before my mind placed who it could be.”

“It has been many years, Colonel.” Yet while I was aware I’d shown my age in wisps of gray, the same could not be said of Moran. Seeing him, I could clearly picture those burlap tents, smoke and heat itself rising thick, the blood of British and Pashtun lads still drying in the dunes, and myself pouring iced drinks as the Commanders congratulated themselves.

“You got out quick from Maiwand, thank heavens.” His braggadocio remained evident as he looked down upon me with false sympathy. “Terrible business that, I'm fairly sure it was the stress of the thing that drove your husband into the fever. He had a faithful service, you know, even while we weren’t certain if you’d be joining him.”

“And you,” I surveyed his stocky musculature and healthy glow, “Made it home without the detour to hospital.”

His grin turned sharp, as I’d hoped. “What has brought you calling on me, Mrs. Watson?”

“The papers name you as one of the last to see Ronald Adair before he was shot dead. I wished to know more of what transpired beforehand.”

The laugh took it’s time building in his belly, so when it did, he wheezed and rubbed his watering eyes. “Jane, Jane, Jane, you are delightfully entertaining. Is this what you’ve been up to since your return, you’ve become some sort of lady detective? I must warn you, I’ve heard tell that’s a very dangerous profession.”

My back stiffened, and I stepped closer so that I might spit my words into his face. “We are not in Afghanistan anymore. Your rank is a courtesy here, it will not shield you from scrutiny. If you are withholding anything from Inspector Lestrade, I will personally aid Scotland Yard in unearthing,” whispering, I concluded, “Everything, Moran.”

His affable countenance didn’t falter. “As charming as catching up with you has been, I’m afraid I’m needed in the club. Shall I call upon you some evening, we could take supper or the fresh air?”

“No, thank you.” With that, I twisted away and made long strides out onto Piccadilly.

So incensed from the short meeting was I that I failed to avoid colliding with an elderly man. In doing so I knocked down several books which he was carrying, and hastened to make apologizes. As I picked them up I observed the title of one of them, _The Origin of Tree Worship,_  which seemed to me very obscure. It was evident that these books which I had unfortunately mistreated were very precious objects in the eyes of their owner. With a snarl of contempt he turned on his heel, and I saw his curved back and white whiskers disappear among the throng.

 

* * *

 

The elder Mycroft Holmes, that enigmatic government official, reached out to me only once, immediately following my return to London. I never could discern the man’s true emotions behind his well practiced stiff upper lip. He offered condolences, which I thought an odd reversal. Sherlock’s wishes, as he explained to me, were that should I wish to remain in 221B Baker Street, her estate be used to let it in full. In the face of his stoicism I couldn't display my inner torment, but breathlessly accepted. Mycroft offered to remove the bulk of her belongings, but I desired to keep them close. Her clutter had made the flat a home, and without the prospect of a country cottage, I needed what comforts I could cling to.

So it was I rose from stoking the fire on stiff and creaking knees, to lay my aimless fingers upon the mantle. The picture frames, rather than preserving sketches or photographs of kin, held newspaper clippings of notable cases. Despite our housekeepers best efforts, my nails caught on droplets of candle wax from ample late nights. The damned skull grimaced up at me, one companion I ought to have divested myself of.

“Excuse me, Jane dear,” ventured Mrs. Hudson, and I dragged my focus from the fireplace, “There’s an elderly man wishing to speak with you. Should I show him in?”

I had no inkling of whom she could refer, yet I bid her let him enter. To my astonishment, it was none other than the strange old book collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out from a mop of white hair, and at least a dozen of his precious volumes wedged under his right arm.

“You’re surprised to see me, ma’am,” said he, in a strange, croaking voice.

“I am, sir,” I acknowledged, gesturing at Mrs. Hudson, “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

“No, no, not at all, you’re very kind.” At the refusal, the housekeeper dismissed herself. “I merely chanced to see you enter this house, and thought I ought to apologize for my gruff manner. There was no harm meant, and I am much obliged to you, Mrs. Watson, for picking up my books.”

“You make too much of a trifle,” said I. Although this man was physically unimposing, I was cautious of his interest, and very aware that we were alone. The cabinet concealing my revolver was a pace at my back, a comfortable anchor. “May I ask how you knew who I was?”

“Well, ma’am, if it isn’t too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of yours, for you’ll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church Street. Maybe you collect yourself, ma’am?” His attention drifted as he sifted through the tomes he bore. “Here’s _British Birds,_  and _Catullus,_  and _The Holy War_ —a bargain every one of them. With five volumes you could just fill that gap on that second shelf. It looks untidy, does it not, ma’am?”

I pivoted to look at the cabinet. I had boxed up a few of the more painful reminders of my old flatmate, and noted the empty spaces he referred to. When I turned again, Sherlock Holmes herself was standing there smiling at me across our sitting room.

My heart stuttered as I stared at her for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted. Certainly a grey mist swirled before my eyes, and when it cleared Holmes was bending over my chair, smelling salts in hand.

“My dear Watson,” said the well-remembered voice, “I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.”

Throwing all sensibility to the wind, I threw my arms around her shoulders in a passionate embrace. Her body, always lithe and now skin and bone, melted into mine through the frock coat of that ghastly disguise.

“Holmes!” I cried. “Is it really you? After three dreadful years? Can it indeed be that you are alive?”

“Wait a moment,” said she in worry. “Are you sure that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic reappearance.” She’d never apologized for her dramatics before, and I laughed through the tears spilling from my eyes. If this was some phantasmagoria, I would treasure every second of it.

“Yes, yes, I’m alright, I’m better than alright.” I pulled back enough to look her in the face while still keeping a tight grasp on her arms. As I’d surmised, in addition to her thinness, there was a white tinge to her patrician face which told me that her life recently had not been a healthy one. “Though perhaps the same cannot be said of you, dear friend. Please, sit down and tell me how you came alive out of that dreadful chasm.”

With an air of humoring me, Sherlock took up her position in her favored armchair across from mine, reaching automatically for the cigarette case. Her delicate fingers struck the match, and the room filled with light. It was as if the months of absence were but a moment now past.

“Well then, about that chasm,” She drawled, releasing her lungful; I had never felt kinder regard for tobacco. “I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I never was in it.”

“You never were in it?” This, at last, was the crack in my joy. Gone were the half-formed dreams of an addled Holmes residing in some Bernese hospice, separated not by that grim veil, nor _choice,_  but mere injury and distance.

“No, Watson, I never was in it.” She regarded me remarkably tenderly, no doubt well aware of my cascading deductions. “My note to you was absolutely genuine. I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived the sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty. I read an inexorable purpose in his grey eyes. We exchanged some remarks, and I thereby obtained his courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received. I left it with my cigarette-box and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels.”

Dropping my gaze, she tapped her nails upon the cigarette case in question. I had scooped it up from Reichenbach’s soil, my last memento, and trembling fingers had discovered the folded pages within. Upon my bereaved return to 221B, I could not think of a thing to do with it except return it to its customary place beside her chair.

“When I reached the end, I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some experience with the art of wrestling, as you well know.”

‘Wrestling’ was a quaint term for the prize fights I’d witnessed Ms. Holmes partake in. To see my slender, pale friend stripped to the waist, brawling bare-knuckled with all manner of prostitutes and factory girls, while men and women alike jeered and placed their bets, was a sight I could only stand on a handful of occasions. More frequently she would come to me in the evening, baring herself to me so that I might stitch the cuts and soothe the scratches she had received in pursuit of some peace. While I never outright voiced my disapproval, I had been quietly grateful when these bouts dwindled to nothing.

“I biffed him under the chin and slipped through his grip,” said Holmes, reducing the encounter to a few insubstantial words. “With a horrible scream, he kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. With my face over the brink I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounced off, and splashed into the water.”

I noted during this retelling, which Holmes delivered between the puffs of her cigarette, her manner was not that of the exultant, conquering heroine; rather, she struck me as ashamed. While my friend made every effort to preserve life, even of her criminal quarries, there had been regrettable instances of deaths she could not prevent. Yet I did not believe Moriarty should elicit her lament.

“The instant that the Professor disappeared, before he had reached the bottom of the Reichenbach Fall, it struck me what an extraordinarily lucky chance Fate had placed in my way. I knew that Moriarty was not the only man who had sworn my death. There were at least three others whose desire for vengeance upon me would only be increased by the death of their leader. They were all most dangerous men, one or other would certainly get me. On the other hand, if all the world was convinced that I was dead they would take liberties, these men, they would lay themselves open, and sooner or later I could destroy them. Then it would be time for me to announce that I was still in the land of the living.

“This in mind, I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me. A few small footholds presented themselves, and there was some indication of a ledge. It was not a pleasant business, Watson. The fall roared beneath me. A mistake would have been fatal. More than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I was gone. But I struggled upwards, and at last I reached the ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen in the most perfect comfort.

“There I was stretched when you, my dear Watson, when you came upon the site and began investigating the circumstances of my death. I swear to you, as soon as I witnessed your anguish, your name was on my lips. It was only the tightest restraint that kept me from calling to you and giving up the ruse.”

“But you didn’t,” The blunt protestation quite escaped me, “Not for three years.” Carefully, I tucked my hands beneath my skirts, uncertain whether they would shake or ball into fists. Still this minute movement betrayed me to her storm-grey gaze.

“No, I did not. Killing Moriarty was inevitable, however, what happened next was solely my doing. I am aware I have hurt you, for reasons and in a manner I fear you cannot forgive.”

I turned my face, so that she might see less of it and glean little that she could use against me. Ms. Holmes, who so eschewed those softer feelings of us mortals, could not possibly comprehend the depth of my grief. She could not measure it in her pipettes or beakers and would sooner cast the matter aside as irrelevant than try to understand.

“Finish your story,” I bade her, so she did.

“I watched silently until you and the authorities formed your inevitable and erroneous conclusions. You departed for the hotel and I was left alone. Or so I initially believed; a series of rocks cascading from above disproved that hypothesis. Professor Moriarty had cronies, it would appear, to observe our confrontation and ensure that, were he not the victor, I met a grim end at their hands. I scrambled down the cliff face, a hundred times more treacherous than the climb, took to my heels and did ten miles over the mountains in the darkness. A week later I found myself in Florence with the certainty that no one in the world knew what had become of me.”

I released a long, sorrowful sigh. “Yes, you had me make certain of that. I spread word to all I could, everyone whose lives you improved, and displayed the condolence wreaths in the window. That was your aim, wasn’t it?”

“I owe you many apologies, my dear Watson, but it was all important that it should be thought I was dead. Several times during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I set it down, lest your affectionate regard for me tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret.”

She did not mean to wound me, I’m certain, but wound me she did. Had I not been a discrete and steadfast partner in her investigations? Did she think me so prone to hysterics, like the ladies she abhorred? So certain she must have been of my injudicious nature to risk my loss of friendship. I stood on shaking legs and glided to the window, intending to distract myself with the pedestrians below. “Waston,” I heard her entreat, though I ignored her, looking through my reflection to the ordinary people below. Surely they were not living through so riotous an upheaval of everything they believed true.

More sharply she called, “Jane, please, sit.” The use of my Christian name tore at my resolve. Petulant sulking had always been her tactic more than mine, however, and I needed to hear the rest, no matter how it hurt. Trepidatious, I returned to my seat, and Holmes seemed to unwind slightly. Tapping the ash from the cigarette, she resumed the tale as if without interruption.

“I had only one confidant—my brother Mycroft. It was necessary to confide in him in order to obtain money and be kept abreast of developments. The course of events in London did not run so well as I had hoped, for the trial of the Moriarty gang left two of its most dangerous members, my own most vindictive enemies, at liberty. I won’t bore you with how I passed the years, the majority of the time was spent traveling under assumed identities. There was little actual investigating I could safely do to conclude matters, but what information I gathered I sent along to Mycroft.

“At last, I was about to return when my movements were hastened by the news of this very remarkable Park Lane Mystery, which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but which seemed to offer some most peculiar personal opportunities.”

Her sudden vagueness was not lost on me. Deciding I’d reached my limit of propriety, I removed the pins holding my hair so that I might rub at my weary scalp. Emotions battered me from all fronts, culminating in the beginnings of a headache.

Through my tangled locks I did not catch her expression as she declared, “So it is that I find myself in my old armchair in my own old room, my old friend Watson in the other chair.”

“Surely all is not so easily settled,” ventured I, raising my head. “For all the world is aware, you are deceased. How are you to counter that?”

Holmes flicked her wrist as if to call it a trifle. “As I said, this Park Lane Mystery must be resolved, and I’ve devised a method for doing so that shall lay to rest all these loose ends. It shall be a hard and dangerous night, made better, I hope, by your company.”

I confessed, “I am full of curiosity. I should much prefer to hear now.”

“You’ll come with me tonight?” After years in her presence I could discern when her need for dramatics must overrule my practical nature. This question, and the postponing of her reveal, were of utmost importance to her.

So I conceded, “When you like and where you like.” My declaration produced a fluttering of eyelashes from Holmes.

Such was the remarkable narrative to which I listened on that April evening—a narrative which would have been utterly incredible to me had it not been confirmed by the actual sight of the tall, spare figure and the keen, eager face, which I had never thought to see again. Upon her at last doffing that old unflattering disguise, I quite nearly swooned once more; no one in all of London captured her elegant style of dress, her charcoal tailcoat and trousers contrasted with an ivory waistcoat and starched winged collar. A nip into her room, for it had always and would always remain so, and she returned with a sly smile and a top hat perched on her tight raven coils. My love glowed, standing before me and in my bosom both.

Ms. Holmes insisted on treating me to a succulent dinner at an artistic Soho establishment, where she of course knew several patrons, yet doted on me exclusively. As evening gave way to night, the events of the day crystallized into reality, losing their dreamy disbelief. My old friend was truly there, in the flesh.

“Please, dear Jane,” Sherlock brushed off yet another inquiry as to the night ahead of us, “We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the empty house.”

 

* * *

 

It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated beside her in a hansom, my revolver heavy in my handbag and the thrill of adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and silent. As the gleam of the streetlamps flashed upon her austere features I saw that her brows were drawn down in thought and her thin lips compressed.

I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as she stepped out she gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street corner she took the utmost pains to assure that we were not followed. Our route was certainly a singular one. Holmes’ knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on this occasion she passed rapidly, and with an assured step, through a network of mews and stables the very existence of which I had never known. We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here she turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard.

I stared up at the rear of a truly unremarkable house as Holmes produced a key from her trouser pocket. It fit the lock of the back door like a hand in a glove and we entered together. As she closed it behind us, the faint lamplight fled and we were in pitch darkness. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in ribbons. Holmes’s cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me forwards down a long hall. We found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the street beyond. There was no lamp and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only just discern each other’s figures within. My companion put her hand upon my shoulder and her lips close to my ear.

“Do you know where we are?” She whispered, unaware of her effect upon my tightened skin.

“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, keeping my gaze firmly on the dim window.

“Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own quarters.” In spite of this assuredly being an empty house, the darkness inspired hushed voices in us both.

“But why are we here?”

“Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile. Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at your rooms—the starting point of so many of our little adventures. We will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you.”

I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes fell upon it I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a woman, seated in a chair within, was thrown in hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the window. I put a hand to my own cheek, the loose wisps of my hair, the shell of my ear.

“Well?” prompted Sherlock at my silence.

“It is marvelous,” I remarked in awe, “Were I not standing here beside you, I would swear that that was me, sitting by my window.”

“A bust in wax, the credit of which is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon, before our sojourn for dinner.”

“But why?” I turned my incredulous gaze to the faint outline of my companion. “Why should you have need of a wax bust of my face?”

“I can think of several purposes, my dear Watson. Tonight the use is quite mundane. We are drawing out a target that you so helpfully provoked.”

“That _I_ provoked?”

“How else you would you classify your encounter in the lobby of the Bagatelle club?”

I gaped at her. “Moran? That’s your target?”

“Our target, darling.”

The endearment failed to penetrate my confusion. “Moran would not endeavor to eliminate me, it would be foolhardy and pointless. He's too shrewd a man for that.”

“Wouldn't he? Moran may act untouchable, but the suspicion weighs heavy on his shoulders as the last to see Adair alive. It would take very little to turn the investigators preliminary questions into an outright overturning of his comfortable retirement. The full scrutiny of the law Moran knows he cannot withstand.”

“I am nothing to Colonel Moran,” I insisted bitterly, “He has no cause to fear me.”

“Ah ah,” Holmes placed a finger on my lips, a method that would not silence me if she employed it overmuch, “You underestimate yourself again. You are a woman with an amicable relationship to Scotland Yard, of good standing in the community, and your word would matter considerably against a hot-headed pig like him. If you did have testimony of his ignoble character, tales of savagery in India, perhaps,” I startled, and Holmes swiftly concluded, “Then Moran has very much cause to kill you indeed.”

I could never help myself from asking, “How could you possibly know?”

“Not know, suspect. I am aware of rumors only; you, however, were there. Hence your position as a threat, which Moran is obligated to negate.” I took it as a blessing that my curious friend did not pry. Perhaps this meant her suspicion was firmer than she let on and so did not need my confirmation, or that she knew pressing me then would cause me to leave. I could not dredge up that history in the unfamiliar and forbidding Camden House.

In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the hurrying figures who passed and re-passed in front of us. It was a bleak and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them muffled in their coats and cravats. I found my observations firmly directed on my companion rather than the street. Holmes was silent and motionless, but I could tell that she was keenly alert, and that her eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. More than once she fidgeted with her feet and tapped rapidly with her fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me that she was becoming uneasy and that her plans were not working out altogether as she had hoped.

At last, as midnight approached and the street gradually cleared, she paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation.

“Could you be mistaken?” I ventured in as kind a tone I could. “I truly doubt the Colonel would waste the bother on me.”

“Has time weakened you so,” She snarled, turning in her pacing, “Or is it your faith in me that has been so eroded?”

I was about to make some scathing retort when in the dim light I saw her head thrown forward, her whole attitude rigid with attention. A glance revealed all was still and dark outside, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. In the utter silence I heard a sibilant note which spoke of Holmes’ intense suppressed excitement. An instant later she pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt her warning hand upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were quivering. Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched lonely and motionless before us.

But suddenly I was aware of that which her keener senses had already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which we lay concealed. The unlocked door opened and shut. An instant later steps crept down the passage—steps which were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty house

Well practiced, Holmes and I fluidly melted into the shadows against the wall. My hand closed upon the handle of my revolver, drawing it free of my handbag. Peering through the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the room. He was within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and my finger tensed on the trigger, before I realized that he had no idea of our presence. He passed close, enough that I caught a whiff of him that tickled my memory, and he stole over to the window, and noiselessly raised it half a foot. In his hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it gave a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. He knelt upon the dusty floor and threw all his weight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click. He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-block. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window.

As he sank to the level of this opening, a slat of light from the street illuminated his eyes. They shone like stars, with a manic glee and malevolence, before he peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder, and for an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud _whiz_ and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass.

At that instant Holmes sprang onto the marksman’s back and carried him to the ground. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength, he seized Holmes by the throat. She gagged, fingers scrabbling at his hold in a moment seared into my mind forever. Without thought, without fear, I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver and he dropped again upon the floor, Holmes drawing audible, welcome breaths. I fell upon him, and bashed him again as my companion blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one plainclothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the room.

“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes into the now incongruously noisy blackness.

“Yes, Ms. Holmes,” the constable exclaimed with pleasure, and a lamp at last banished the shadows. Inspector Lestrade looked much the same as the last time he had called upon me, save for his self-satisfied beam. “I took the job myself. It’s good to see you back in London.”

“Naturally. Three undetected murders in one year, truly, Lestrade?” Holmes chided out of habit, and as the inspector’s jovial demeanor dropped, she uncharacteristically seemed to note her lack of tact. “But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual—that’s to say, you handled it fairly well.”

Our prisoner was breathing hard, with a stalwart constable on each side of him. At last I was able to have a proper look at him. It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us, twisted in hatred and amazement in equal measure, as his cruel blue eyes flitted from Holmes’ face to mine. It was as my friend predicted, and I had denied: Colonel Sebastian Moran.

“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging her rumpled collar, “ _Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,_  as the old play says. I don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.”

Moran cast one last look from me, to the window, to Holmes, and uttered as though in a trance, “You cunning, cunning fiend.”

“I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes grandly, reveling in her status as ringmaster once again. “This, Inspectors, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, and the best heavy game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivaled?”

The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion; with his savage eyes and bristling moustache he resembled no less a tiger himself.

“I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a shikari,” said Holmes. “It must be very familiar to you. Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you. These,” she pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is exact.” At once, Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to look at. It pained me to witness, to have this image overlaid the impeccable gentleman he had once presented as.

“I confess that you had one small surprise for me,” said Holmes. “I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you as operating from the street, where my friend Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you. With that exception, all has gone as I expected.”

Colonel Moran turned to the official detective. “You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,” said he, “But at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of this loathsome _tribade._  If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal way.”

“Oy!” Lestrade clapped the back of Moran’s head enough for him to duck. “You’ll not besmirch our Ms. Holmes in such a vulgar fashion.” My friend, I noted, looked subtly touched. Looking up, Lestrade said, “Nothing further you have to say, Ms. Holmes, before we go?”

Cooly, professionally, she replied, “Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?”

“What charge, ma’am? Why, of course, the attempted murder of your Mrs. Jane Watson here.”

“Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose that Jane nor myself appear in the matter at all. To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which you have effected.” She clapped the inspector on the arm. “Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him.”

“Got him? Got who?”

“The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain—Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding bullet from an air gun through the open window of the second-floor front of No. 427 Park Lane, upon the 30th of last month. That’s the charge, Lestrade, and that’s the murder weapon.” My friend nodded her chin at the powerful air-rifle now in the curious hands of a young constable. The detectives gaped, their confundity and consternation permeating like the cold. Holmes continued unabashed, “And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement.” She strode from the room with a flick of her coattails, and I was helpless but to follow, averting my eyes from either the dumbstruck Lestrade or the furious Moran.

 

* * *

 

Baker Street was a welcome balm to my unsettled nerves. Holmes had beaten me there, and I heard her buoyant tones conversing with Mrs. Hudson as I climbed the stairs to the study.

“I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?” Holmes was saying as I entered. My survey of the room revealed our longtime housekeeper, beaming proudly, and the strange dummy which had played so important a part in the evening’s adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of myself, so lovingly rendered that it was a perfect facsimile. Save, of course, for the blatant exit wound right through my left eye.

“I went to it on my knees, ma’am, just as you told me.”

“Excellent,” Holmes exclaimed in her endearing way, “You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where the bullet went?”

“Yes, Ms. Holmes. It passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!”

Upon observing it for a scant instant, Holmes held it out to me. “A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive, Watson. There’s genius in that, for who would expect to find such a thing fired from an air gun. All right, Mrs. Hudson, I am much obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss with you.”

Sensitive as ever to one of Holmes’ dismissals, our housekeeper awayed below the stairs, and Holmes and I were left alone with a damaged wax bust. I was grateful to have my back to the thing as I settled heavily in my armchair, though noticed my friend’s sharp gaze stray over my shoulder to it time to time.

“What could be left to discuss,” said I, wiping a weary hand over my brow. “You were once again successful in your deductions and have apprehended a frightfully dangerous man.” Meeting Holmes’ gaze, I blurted, “I truly never imagined he would make an attempt on my life. I thought us both aware of the hollowness of my threat.”

“Then why make it in the first place?”

“I had no evidence Moran caused young Adair’s demise. I knew only his character. That is what I proposed to bring to Scotland Yard if, upon my inquiry, Lestrade truly suspected him.”

“Your ‘knowledge’ of his character, this came from witnessing his cruelty firsthand, isn’t that right?” A shudder crept through me, eliciting a strange tightening around Holmes’ eyes. “Oh my dear, I wish it were not necessary to recount this.”

“Ah, but you leave me in no doubt that it is,” I replied, a touch bitterly. “Yes. Moran would verbally and physically abuse the boys under his command. He took pleasure in the fear he inspired, among men and women. There was…” My throat constricted. “There was a native lad in India, assigned to his service. He… received lashes from Moran, which I treated. The next day he was nowhere to be found. Moran insisted he had absconded with some rations, but I knew… in his condition he could not have made it far under his own power.”

Tears, damnable things, slid down my cheeks. I brushed them aside, cursing this obvious sign of weakness, and could not bear to look at Holmes.

Her voice was, naturally, even. “You were fortunate to get away when you did, my dear. Eventually India became too hot to hold him. Moran retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. No? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the Colonel concealed that even when the Moriarty gang was broken up we could not incriminate him. You remember before our sojourn how I put up the shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge.”

“What a remarkable coincidence,” said I, “That my bogey-man for so long should became a henchman for your archfoe.”

“Not so much, Watson. You are, as I have said, an impeccable judge of character and braver than you acknowledge. For a man to trouble your gentle soul, he must be rotten to his core, and therefore a perfect target for Moriarty to acquire.”

“Then your return to London,” I surmised aloud, “Was precipitated by the death of Ronald Adair. The news reached you abroad and you recognized his name, Moran’s, I mean.”

“There was not a doubt Colonel Moran had done it. He had played cards with the lad, Moran undoubtedly played foul and Adair threatened to expose him, he followed him home from the club, and shot him through the open window. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. It was unequivocal: I could come home.”

As I watched, spellbound, Sherlock’s factual recounting faltered, revealing a longing that tugged at my own heart. It conjured a flurry of recollections: the first firm grasp of my hand in St. Bart’s laboratory; my gradual induction into her work through the Brixton Mystery; a hundred surreptitious touches in forty or so cases, a thousand stolen looks in a decade of cohabitation, a million fluttering heartbeats; a discarded dream of a country cottage with its apiary and garden.

As quickly as it came, her sentimentality was clouded and obscured by pique. “No sooner had I reached good British soil did I learn from my Irregulars that a Mrs. Watson had announced her intention to confront the dangerous madman I intended on drawing out. What was I to think? Upstaged by my old comrade! My plan would need adjustment; it could not be I to play the bait, but you, in spite of the pain it caused me.” Holmes did not bat an eye at her positively histrionic admission, though it inflamed my blood and brought color to my cheeks. “The scheme proceeded perfectly, save for the troublesome detail of our assailant choosing the same vantage point as ourselves. Above all other satisfactions this case has brought me, the last of Moriarty’s Generals vanquished, the famous air-gun of Von Herder embellishing the Scotland Yard Museum…” Uncharacteristically, my friend fell silent, her clause hanging loose and lost. Our home seemed to hover in anticipation. I could not fully catch my breath.

Holmes rose, slowly, unfolding herself quite like a panther in her grace, and crossed before our hearth towards me. I imagined she would loom over me, as was once her wont. Instead, with a slight hitch of her trouser legs, Sherlock Holmes knelt at my feet.

“Holmes, please!” I exclaimed aghast. Those violinist's fingers grasped reverently at my hem. She bowed her head, brushing faintly below my knee. “Whatever are you doing?”

“To be allowed at your side once more,” She directed at my stockinged toes, like one swearing to Her Majesty, “Is all I dreamt of for three years. I regret more than I can express through words having left you, and to have left you in the dark, and should you find it in your boundless capability for kindness to let me back, to 221B, to you, I—”

“Get up will you!” I implored, reaching to grab her upper arms. Perhaps I surprised her, because my friend unbowed with little physical prompting. Her pale eyes were wide and gleaming as she looked into my expression, a cracking facade of strength. “I’ll not have you abase yourself thusly, not for me, nor anyone.”

She did not shy away, but reacted as though granted a great boon. “For your forgiveness, I would take any debasement you wished.” Her hand rose to delicately caress my cheek. “Though your noble heart could never abide it.”

Oh damn my heart. Noble, she called it. Noble it may have been, but it was feeble too. No longer could I withstand this torture, and I leaned down to press my lips upon hers. Simple, sparing kiss though it was, it nonetheless upended my world. There would forever be a definite demarcation of time, Before and After I kissed Sherlock Holmes. Mere seconds ticked by before we parted with a soft susurration.

Perhaps I had finally reached my emotional limit, because I watched numbly as Sherlock drew back and gently rested her fingertips to her wet lips. Her oft-piercing gaze seemed feathered around the edges. Though I could muster no fear, I was dumb as I awaited her response.

Finally, looking up through her lashes, she murmured, “Yes, I would do that too.”

 _For your forgiveness_ … “No, no, I didn’t mean—”

That faint pressure upon my cheek was replaced by a firm cradling of my chin. “Apologies, sweetheart. You have been my conscience and my heart for so long, of course I forget you have not always known and believed it to be true.” Overwrought, I could hardly decipher her declaration. This time she tilted her head and lingered scant millimeters from my breathlessly parted lips. As she spoke, I felt her form the words, “You need only have asked, Jane, dearest.”

My Sherlock, my miraculous Ms. Holmes, embraced me with an ardor I had scarcely imagined. She savored me like a fine cognac and drew me to her body as she had unceasingly drawn me to her soul. I was adrift on the thrill of a chase through dark London alleys, the ecstasy of an expertly bowed aria on a much loved Stradivarius, and the mutual passion of shared revelation all at once. Every stumble in our journey, every lingering tragedy, was made worthwhile in her deep abiding kisses.

My companion—my love tired of our inequitable position and tumbled me to the floor. Her hands roamed tirelessly from my body to tug my knot askew and send my hair into disarray. I could barely note where my hands resided, so consumed was I by peppering wet kisses from her cheek to her ear. Sherlock uttered a sudden moan of joy that so reminded me of her noise lying in wait that I laughed aloud.

“Jane,” My darling Sherlock chanted with each breath, “Jane, Jane, Jane…”

As time melted like icicles into Spring, we came back to ourselves sprawled in a tangle before the fire, my skirt rucked up and shirtwaist undone, my Sherlock in similar _déshabillé,_ the both of us flushed and giddy. Propping herself up on her elbow, Sherlock drawled, as she ran her touch down my neck, “Now, my dearest Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?”

Mad with a happiness I can but only wish upon you, my dear likeminded readers, I told her, “Only how we came to wait so long.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you have enjoyed this strange journey of Victorian Lesbians as much as I have.
> 
> A few interesting points of research:  
> [Sappho as a Victorian Virtue](https://pdfsecret.com/download/the-victorian-construction-of-sappho-1835-1914_5a1326a8d64ab24772a676fe_pdf)  
> [Lesbian History in the Archives](https://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/tra43813)  
> [The Chemistry of Sherlock Holmes](http://surrey-shore.freeservers.com/HolmChem.htm)  
> [19th Century Midwives](http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2014/06/19th-century-midwives.html)  
> [Music Hall Entertainment](http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126837.html)  
> [Opera in England](http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/opera-in-england/)  
> [The Maiden's Confession](https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.100008174.0/?sp=1)  
> [Hatpin self defense](http://www.bartitsu.org/index.php/2010/07/the-sting-of-a-hornet-edwardian-hat-pin-self-defence/)  
> [Women in British pugilism](http://www.fscclub.com/history/zhened-old2-e.shtml)  
> [A Chronological Order of Sherlock Holmes Stories](https://craigjanacek.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/a-chronological-order-of-sherlock-holmes-stories/)


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